


Another Dream, Another Love You'll Hold

by BroadwayStarletQueen



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Depression, F/M, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Journalism, Love, Mentions of Suicide, New York, Romance, nervous breakdown, possible triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:36:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 48
Words: 105,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BroadwayStarletQueen/pseuds/BroadwayStarletQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years since that fateful spring, and Melchior Gabor has tried--and failed--to move on.  Living in New York City in 1897, he's trying to make it as a freelance journalist while attempting to atone for what he did to Wendla Bergmann.  When the chance comes for Melchior to reconnect with humanity and have a chance at love and family, will he seize it and finally be able to forgive himself?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, dear readers!
> 
> So, I wrote this about three years ago and decided to see what would happen if I posted my brain ramblings of 10th grade online. I always wondered what happened after the events of Spring Awakening--what exactly did Melchior do? How did he try to make a difference? Did his family accept him back after everything he'd done? Did he really get over Wendla and Moritz so quickly?
> 
> This is my novel-length fic attempt to answer these questions.
> 
> Bear in mind that this is an entirely new plot with new characters, the only character you'll recognize being Melchi. Moritz and Wendla really only exist as a presence in his mind, not as living, breathing characters. I hope you try it anyway, since I tried to develop new characters readers would love just as much.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_Everything about this field reminds him.  They make the grass whisper around them, running and giggling through the field like children.  Weeds brush against her stockings, and the spring sun gleams in her hair.  This was always their favorite spot; there’s the willow tree where he would read to her, and the spot where she’d sit and make daisy chains._

_She runs, and he runs after her.  It’s all a game to her, and he knows it, but he has to get to her.  He has to run and catch his prize, hold the folds of her short little dress and feel her dark curls and know she’s real._

_“Melchi!” she laughs, stumbling._

_This place is heaven, if he believed in such a place.  It is paradise and peace, and there she is, as beautiful as the last time he saw her.  Her smile persuades him to keep running, even though she is smaller and faster._

_“Melchior!  Come to me!” she says, holding out her arms to him.  He is trying, but she’s always out of reach._

_“I can’t!” he cries in indignation.  He stands firmly in place, tired of running, as she slowly walks up to him._

_“Of course you can’t, silly!” she says, looking up at him.  There are only inches between them, and she stares at him with those huge brown eyes.  Her smile shines as she leans closer still.  “You killed me.”_

            “No!” he screamed, jerking up from his sleep.  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the darkness, and he clutched the sheets around him as the last wisps of the nightmare swirled away.  He blinked away the images of her haunting smile until he could see clearly once more.

            He knew immediately to stand up and throw off the covers.  He knew it was useless to try and stop the shaking, but it would cease in a few moments if he calmed himself down.  He knew that he could control his sobs, so he bit his lip and focused on keeping the tears from escaping his eyes.

            He knew this, because it had been five years since Wendla Bergmann’s death, and Melchior Gabor hadn’t gone one night without dreaming about her.

            Taking a minute to breathe, he ran a hand through his hair and wiped tears away with the other.  After each nightmare, he had learned to center himself by whatever means necessary, otherwise they would drive him mad.  He had to face facts: it had been five years, and this still threatened his very existence, everything that made him Melchior Gabor.  Each nightmare pushed him closer to insanity.

            He took another deep breath and walked to his window, leaning on the frame.  The city lay before him, rooftops of buildings taking smoke up the heavens where his Wendla ran without him. 

            _No, no, no.  Don’t think about it.  Don’t think._

            He turned abruptly and strode over to his desk, pulling open a drawer and fumbling deep inside for matches.  His fingers closed around the small box and he lit the candle on his desk, illuminating the apartment.

            It wasn’t nice by any means: far too small and squalid, but cheap.  There was only just the one perpetually messy room, which Melchior kept untidy on purpose.  A small stove sat in one corner and the bed sat in the other, sheets twisted nightly from each new dream.  The floors and walls were littered with books and papers: anything intellectual he could get his hands on, really.  Books sat in piles and stacks according to some perfect order in his mind, and thousands of pages and notes scribbled in his hand were his wallpaper. 

            He sat at his small desk, holding his head in his hands.  “I can’t keep doing this,” he said.  “It’s killing me.  I need sleep.” 

            Melchior hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep in five years, and you could tell.  Dark circles under his eyes pointed out the obvious. 

            He stared at his bed, considering going back to sleep.  But her face sprang into his mind again, and he knew he couldn’t.  So, he did what he always did when his bed terrified him and deprived him from much-needed rest: he read.  Reading had always been his sanctuary, and now it was his only asylum from the war constantly waging in his mind. 

            But as he cracked open an old leather book, he knew: it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

           

            _“Wendla!”_

_The scratchy whisper echoed through the graveyard, bouncing the name off the headstones.  Melchior crouched behind one, scanning the mist for her._

_He had been running all day, thinking of the news as he escaped the reformatory and came home to his real future.  Melchior, a father?_

_The hayloft, of course.  That’s where Wendla must have conceived.  At the time, he wasn’t thinking about the possibility of pregnancy, he hadn’t even entertained the thought.  He’d just let the passion take over, the passion he’d felt grow and boil inside him for weeks until he could finally let it go in one glorious afternoon._

_He’d worried about her endlessly, because she’d seemed so confused and fragile after.  But one reassuring smile from her and he knew she’d enjoyed it on some level.  She might not have known what they did, but she was at least a willing participant._

_Wasn’t she?_

_The news of his impending parenthood had barely shaken him at all.  He was actually excited, ready to take on the challenge.  This was the greatest news of his life, and he intended on escaping the narrow world he lived in with Wendla and their child.  He would make it better for them.  Just thinking about it warmed him inside._

_“Wendla!” he called again.  He couldn’t wait to see her.  She was a little late, but to get away from that monster mother of hers, she could have all the time she needed._

_She’d come with her things, and they’d depart for a brighter future.  It was a naïve thought, but he didn’t consider it.  He didn’t think about the difficulty they’d face as unmarried 14-year-old parents, just that Wendla’s smiling face would be here soon, and he’d get to hear from her own lips that she was going to be the mother of his child._

_It was getting late, though.  Melchior breathed out a bored sigh.  “Look at this. Spend your life running from the church and where do you end up?”  He shook his head at the irony and stared ahead at the little glow in the church window.  How long ago was it that he’d been there?_

_Oh, yes._

_Moritz’s funeral._

_Looking down, he could see Moritz’s grave a few yards away.  Some sad, droopy little flowers hung across the headstone, reminding Melchior of his old friend’s messy hair._

_“Moritz…” he began, kneeling on the frost-covered earth.  “My old friend.”  The grave did not respond; how could it?_

_Melchior grabbed handfuls of grass and blinked away a few tears.  Moritz’s death had affected him more than he let on, but he tried to ignore it.  It was partly his fault, of course.  If he hadn’t written that damned essay and gotten him so confused---_

_Oh, no.  Now he couldn’t ignore it._

_He let the utter pain and desolation of Moritz’s death grip him for a moment because there was nothing he could do to stop it.  He had a hand in it, he was to blame, and now Moritz was gone._

_“Well, they won’t get to me!” he vowed, sniffing as he pushed all the horrible thoughts away.  It wasn’t really his fault.  It was the adults, the teachers, the parents.  They killed Moritz.  Not him.  And they sure as hell weren’t killing Melchior._

_“Or Wendla!” he amended.  “I won’t…I won’t let them…” He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.  “We’ll build a world together for our child!”_

_The church bells began to toll._

_“Midnight,” he breathed.  Wendla would be here any moment._

_He scanned the graveyard again for her, this time not ignoring the gravestones lined up in rows like soldiers.  The sight of them in the dark scared him a little, but as a boy who didn’t believe in God, he also didn’t believe in ghosts.  There was nothing to fear here.  Nothing could hurt him._

_“All these little tombs.  And here, a fresh one,” he laughed, kicking at the dirt of one nearby.  Vines were planted neatly at the head, and Melchior pulled them away to read the name on the grave._

_He would forever wish he hadn’t._

_“Here rests,” he read to Moritz’s tomb, “in God: Wendla Berg--”_

_It was the disbelief that got him.  Like it was some joke, or that he’d read it wrong.  It must be someone else.  Two people in the community with the same name.  A relative, perhaps, that Wendla was named for._

_“No…”he said in a strangled sort of way.  He checked the dates on the headstone and kept rereading the name, confused.  “Born---died---of anemia?”_

_He didn’t remove his hand from the name he refused to admit was hers as he put the pieces together in his head.  He was a smart boy.  It didn’t take him long.  A hundred different scenarios flitted through his mind, but the end was the same.  Wendla’s family had found out, and his defenseless Wendla had been forced to go through with something to get rid of---to get rid---_

_He’d read about such procedures, and even thought them smart at one time.  If his idea for a world where sex could happen freely and children could be born shamelessly was impossible, at least abortion procedures could be counted on to rid couples from a mistake._

_But his child was not a mistake!_

_He couldn’t blink away the image of Wendla lying on an operating table, somewhere cold and dark.  She was crying, covering her abdomen, calling for him.  Something went wrong.  Somehow, before he could stop them, they’d gotten to Wendla and taken not only his child, but her too._

_“Wendla, too,” he whispered, numb._

_Disbelief was clouded over by horror.  It was him, all him.  He’d pushed himself to a point where he thought he was ready, he’d pushed Wendla into something that they both should have waited for, and poor, innocent Wendla paid the price.  She’d done nothing wrong, nothing.  It was him, and he was the cause of not only her death, but the child’s.  His child.  Their child._

_“NO!” he screamed.  “NO!”_

_He pounded on her grave in anguish.  It was so wrong, the way he’d hovered over her in the warmth of the hayloft with such confidence and passion.  Now, he hovered over her in the cool of midnight, and there was no confidence, no passion.  There was only grief and guilt.  Wendla was buried under six feet of dirt and gravel, and she’d never run through the fields with him again._

_“No…” he sobbed, his vision clouding with black spots.  The guilt was too much.  Wendla was dead.  Moritz was dead.  His child was dead.  And it was him, all him.  “No…”_

_There was nothing, nothing this earth could offer him.  He deserved nothing.  He was too evil to deserve even death, but that was the only option now.  He had to escape.  Guilt this deep could not be dealt with in life._

_He pulled out a razor quickly, trembling.  The silver of the blade winked in the spring moonlight, laughing at him.  He’d give them something to laugh about, all right._

_Holding the blade high, he stared into its reflective surface, and would have pulled it across his sobbing throat had he not caught an image in it._

_Moritz’s face._

_Melchior screamed and threw down the razor, looking behind him.  No one was there, but he had just seen the form of Moritz sitting behind him._

_“Moritz?” he asked fearfully in a whisper.  Moritz had looked tired.  His hair still stood up, defying gravity itself, and his eyes were expressionless.  He just sat there, shoulders slumped, next to Melchior._

_Melchior’s mind fired off explanations as he turned back around, away from where the specter had been seen: a hallucination, conjured by his mind to make him feel guiltier still.  A dream.  A trick of the light.  “I’ve been a fool,” he whimpered to the ghost-like being, even though he refused to turn around and look at it straight on now._

_Whatever it was, it gave no response.  Even so, Melchior didn’t feel guilty at the appearance of this specter, just angry.  “Well, you had the right idea,” he spat, raising the razor again.  He’d follow Moritz’s route, and they’d be a pair of dead cowards.  “They’ll scatter a little earth---and THANK THEIR GOD!”_

_And then her face flashed in the razor, and Melchior lost it.  He didn’t drop the razor or look behind him, he simply stared into the distance where for one second, one sure second, he’d seen Wendla Bergmann in a white night gown.  Her face was drawn, and she had the same expressionless look in her eyes.  Both ghosts, or whatever they were, lacked any feeling in their eyes._

_He was frozen.  He didn’t know if this was all in his head, but he knew---he KNEW---he was not alone in the graveyard._

_Part of him still wanted to feel the relief of swiping the blade across his throat and ending it, but most of him was too fearful of these ghosts.  They didn’t seem malevolent, but they terrified him all the same._

_He’d heard whispers and overlapping words as he tentatively raised the razor again.  He couldn’t do it, he was sure, but he’d wanted to provoke a response from the ghosts behind him.  Haunting melodies and cold winds danced behind him, and he was sure if he turned around, he’d die of fright._

_A warm touch on his right shoulder reassured him, and he could feel strength come from that unearthly touch.  It seemed like a friendly hand, and Melchior nearly cried out because he could feel it: he could feel Moritz in the hand.  Despite the tingling sensation of another world, it was Moritz through and through._

_Another touch on his hand, making him drop the razor.  It was Wendla, sweet Wendla, and these two gentle pressures sent Melchior’s mind out of the darkness._

_It was better than a “don’t” or “it’s okay”, even greater than an “it wasn’t your fault”.  It was everything._

_Melchior had been given a second chance, and this spring’s awakening ended with a rebirth for him.  Pulling the ghostly warmth close to his heart, he promised the night and the souls of his two friends that he would do right._

_He told them he was sorry, and that he would move on with his life and make up for the wrong he’d done, and that their memories would never leave him.  He’d emerge a better man, and he’d do good with his life.  He would move on and find the good.  He would.  He would._

            “Except I didn’t,” he groaned.  “I couldn’t move on.”  He rubbed his temples, ridding his mind of the memory for the moment.

            He’d tried, of course.  He’d walked out of the graveyard a free man, marching to his old house without a plan, just bittersweet joy that he had been given this beautiful second chance.  But the illusion of courage and nobility he’d created about the road his life would take was fragile, and when he knocked on his own door at one in the morning, his mother’s face broke it.

            There was so much confusion and hurt, as well as revulsion.  “Melchior,” she’d said.  “You know about the Bergmann girl, then?”

            The peace he’d made with himself at the graveyard had shattered.

_She was standing in the doorway in a robe.  A few stray hairs escaped the bun on her neck and hung about her face, but her bewildered and tired eyes were what killed Melchior._

_She knew._

_She knew that Melchior was responsible for Wendla’s death, and somehow that robbed him of any good feeling.  He’d been in the graveyard an hour ago, promising to make something of himself, and here he was, back to that despair._

_“Mama,” he said in an odd, clipped voice.  “May I come in?”_

_She hesitated.  “You killed her, Melchi.  You killed a little girl.  My little boy killed a little girl.”_

_“I didn’t mean to.”_

_She didn’t seem to hear.  “I loved you so much, Melchior.  I thought I was being a good parent, letting you read what you wanted, letting you educate yourself.  I considered myself lucky for getting such a good son.”_

_“Mama…”_

_“Melchior, I can’t…you…” She burst into tears, and Melchior didn’t have any idea what to do.  He froze there, watching his mother cry, and let his mouth hang open in horror._

_The despair was gone, and there was only shock.  Melchior’s father heard the crying, and when he saw Melchior, the screaming woke the entire neighborhood._

_“GET OUT!  GET OUT!  You’re no son of mine!  GET OUT!  MURDERER!” His father’s rage was so alien to him that Melchior ran away like a scared animal.  There was no feeling, just animal impulse.  Melchior ran through the darkness away from the house, away from the community.  And he didn’t feel anything._

_He collapsed miles away next to the road, falling in a heap under a tree.  Images swam before his exhausted vision, of his father screaming, his mother crying, of the ghosts, of Wendla on the operating table and Moritz with his gun, of essays and haylofts and children and angels and stars._

_It didn’t matter what peace he made with himself, because the truth was all that mattered.  He’d spent his whole life searching for truth, and there it was: he’d killed people he loved.  Whatever revelation he’d had in the graveyard with the ghosts was his way of escaping the blame and deluding himself into thinking it wasn’t his fault that his best friend, lover, and child were dead.  He’d been kicked out of his house and was a runaway teenager with no prospects._

_He wouldn’t kill himself.  He was over that and it wouldn’t change anything.  So Melchior let the great sobs rack his body and his cries ring out, and then he let himself fall asleep._

It was the first fitful sleep in a lifetime of many, and dark nightmares of Wendla and Moritz came at him left and right.  Some were only of them teasing him and taunting him as angels, and others were more graphic.  When he’d awoken, he’d awoken a grim and hopeless man. 

Melchior finished the book, though he hadn’t really been paying attention to it, and sat at his desk.  He quickly read through his pieces for the morning, proofreading them for errors, and took a stab at some more English words.  He’d utilized his time at night well, and his English was getting better every day.  He wanted to make his English vocabulary as extensive as his German one.

The clock to his left said two in the morning: eight hours until the meeting.  He really should try and snatch some sleep, even if it was only an hour or two.  His nightmares might be milder tonight.

He blew out the candle and let the night seep in.  Melchior had always been fascinated with the night, when it made him feel vulnerable and powerful all at once when he was fourteen.  At nineteen, it just made him feel alone and frightened, but as the candle went out, a whisper of his fourteen-year-old wonder overtook him.  He grabbed a sheet off the bed and curled up next to the window, looking up into the stars.  The view from his apartment was not very appealing, as there were no big buildings with lights in 1897 New York City, but tonight, the dim glow of old buildings illuminated the city below, and the constellations above guarded the night.  Melchior let sleep roll over him, and when the nightmares came, as before, he was ready.


	2. Chapter 2

“Where the hell is he?” Howard hissed, tapping his fingers impatiently on the desk.  A timid secretary gulped and approached him.

            “Mr. Howard, sir?”

            “You heard me, kid.  You’re my secretary, what do I pay you for?  Tell me where my ten o’clock is!  I’m a busy man!”

            The secretary pushed his glasses up his nose and got out his agenda book.  “It says right here, sir.  Ten o’clock, Mr. Gabor.  He should be here any moment.”

            He sighed and shooed him away.  “Get the hell out of my office.  Don’t come back in until Gabor arrives.”

            The secretary obliged him and scrambled out of the room.

            Norman Howard didn’t necessarily love his job, but he loved to boss people around, and he had great vision.  It was what made him good as an editor, and as the editor-in-chief of the New York Times, he needed those attributes.  He considered himself a caretaker of the most important city in the world, and it was his job to take care of his citizens by giving them the news they needed. 

            Which was why Howard was so intrigued by Melchior Gabor.  Gabor had come to him six months ago, and Howard immediately liked him and disliked him at the same time.  On the one hand, he was a great writer: his words were powerful and passionate, and he talked about issues no one else dared to go near.  He brought Howard truth and honest opinion, and it was refreshing.  Unorthodox, for sure, but refreshing.

            Every two weeks, he’d arrive at ten in his office with three new essays, and Howard would read them then and there.  The pair would then proceed to argue about the essays, and after furious crossing out and editing, they’d have a good piece to print.  And it ALWAYS stirred up controversy, which Howard loved.

            On the other hand, Melchior Gabor and Norman Howard had developed quite a rapport, and though the two didn’t like to admit it, they were definitely friends.  Which brought Howard to the reasons he didn’t like him: he was too quiet, cool, and reserved all the time.  He hadn’t cracked a genuine smile for him or a real laugh.  In a way, he seemed robotic, which Howard found unnatural for a 19-year-old writer with such promise.  It was such a contrast to his loud, domineering personality that it unnerved him, because Gabor acted so much smarter than him.

            Melchior refused to talk about his past at all, and Howard didn’t push it.  So every two weeks at ten, Howard and Gabor would go at it ferociously, and the veins in Howard’s neck would stick out while Gabor sat there, the embodiment of the phrase “if looks could kill”.  But a new essay would be printed each week, and Howard looked forward to their meetings.

            “Sir, he’s here!” squeaked the secretary, pulling a late Gabor into the office. Melchior rolled his eyes and shrugged out of the secretary’s hold.  For someone five minutes late for a meeting with the illustrious Norman Howard, he didn’t look flustered.  He just stood there in his coat, holding his portfolio close to his chest.

            “You’re late,” Howard said disapprovingly.  “Take a seat.”

            The secretary exited with another squeak as Melchior took his coat off and slid into the leather armchair usually reserved for special guests.

            “Out of that chair, Gabor.  You’re here with a piece, you sit in the chair in front of my desk.”

            “But it’s awfully uncomfortable,” Melchior smirked.  “I thought we were at a point where I could sit in the special chair.”

            “In your dreams, Gabor.  Hand them over.”

            Melchior tossed the portfolio over the desk, not leaving the armchair.  Howard really couldn’t care less about the chair, and he knew it.

            “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Howard clicked as he scanned the essays.  “ ‘The Roots of Shame’, ‘Thoughts on Goethe’s Faust’, ‘The Illusion of Joy’. A little dark, even for you, don’t you think?”

            Melchior didn’t say anything; he simply continued to stare.  Howard looked at him incredulously, and then read through the articles, sneaking peeks at Melchior every few seconds.  He had to give Gabor credit, he never let his poker face down.

            “So…” Melchior began, turning his hazel eyes skyward, “what do you think?”

            “Honestly?  It’s straight trash,” Howard grumbled, throwing the portfolio at the boy.

            “What?!”

            “Listen, kid, these articles are painful to read.  I don’t know what creepy, dark stuff is going on under that curly mop of yours, but people don’t pay to read mopey,” Howard explained.  He paused a second before beginning again.  “Gabor, do your parents know you write this kind of stuff?”

            “I’m no longer with my parents,” Melchior said stiffly.

            “That’s not unusual.  So you live alone?”

            “So what if I do?”

            “Don’t get defensive.  I’m just a little worried, that’s all.  Kids like you shouldn’t be writing about this kind of suffering.”

            Melchior tensed in the chair.  “I didn’t write about suffering.  I wrote about the origin of shame, the human delusion and fragility of joy, and a review of a play.”

            “You might as well be writing an obituary, kid.  Last month I get a brilliant plan for educational reform and a passionate defense of that convict in Queens, and now I get heavy.  My readers won’t buy it,” Howard warned, leaning back in his chair.

            “Then your readers should go entertain themselves with fairy tales.  I write my opinions.”

            “I’m not printing any of this.  I make the decisions, I’m the editor.”

            Melchior stayed silent after this statement, looking out the window. 

            “Melchior, do you want me to give it to you straight?”

            He didn’t answer, simply staring at the city with his eyebrows furrowed.  He looked so…old.

            “Melchior, your work is amazing.  It really is, and you know it.  You’re a gem.  But your work has been getting progressively---”

            “Excuse me, sir!” the secretary screamed, bursting into the office in a flurry of papers.  A small child seemed to be flailing in his arms.

            “What on earth is going on?” Howard thundered, standing up.  The scruffy little thing wriggled out of the secretary’s grip and landed with a thump on the floor.

            “I’m sorry, sir!  He simply ran past me!  I don’t know what he wants, I just tried to grab him---OW!”

            The secretary’s explanation was cut short as the child kicked him in the shins.  Howard couldn’t help but break into a grin as the secretary squealed like a little girl.  The child noticed, and turned to face the editor as the secretary clutched his shin.

            He was the definition of a street urchin: dirt-smeared face, toothy grin, floppy hat and too-big clothes.  The boy couldn’t have been four feet tall, but his coat was made for a grown man and flapped around him like a bathrobe.  “You’re Mr. Howard, ain’t ya?” he grinned, rocking back and forth.

            “Indeed.  And you are?”

            The boy extended a hand.  “I’m Fiff, sir.”

            “Mr. Howard, let me escort the boy out.  I’m so sorry to interrupt your meeting, and I assure you it won’t happen again!” The secretary made a grab for the boy, but Howard stopped him.

            “Let’s give Mr. Fiff a chance, shall we?  He’s obvious gone through a lot of trouble to get here.”

            The boy grinned and shook Howard’s hand with great enthusiasm.  “I knew you’d let me stay, I knew you would!  I says to meself, I says, ‘Fiff, that there’s a decent man you’ll let a kid like you sit wiv im in his office!’ and you did!”

            The secretary huffed and left the room as Howard chuckled.  This little boy certainly was entertaining.  “Why don’t you take a seat?”

            “Who’s that?” Fiff asked, pointing at Melchior.  Howard had almost forgotten he was there; Gabor had been so quiet.

            “He’s a friend of mine.  So what did you come for?” he asked the child, leaning over the desk.

            Fiff took a deep breath, as if he had rehearsed this.  Then his face lit up as he launched into a theatrical speech.  “Mr. Howard, do I have a story for ya!  Straight from the slums and dumps of the city, a real account of New York City’s poor and desperate!  The plight of the homeless and starving!  The real story of what happens to our immigrants and hobos!  I tell ya, this story will make the front page easy!”

            Howard chuckled again at his fervor.  “Did you write me a story, Mr. Fiff?”

            “Not me, sir, I can’t write.  Can’t even read, meself.  I was told to deliver this to you by its author, the great Jimmy Hugo.”

            From the depths of his coat, Fiff produced a dark leather cover, and Howard plucked it from his grubby hands.  Not sure what exactly to expect, he opened the cover to find pages of neat, tiny scrawl.  Eagerly scanning the pages, Howard felt his heart beat faster.  This was it.

            However Fiff had gotten a hold of it, he had delivered to Norman Howard the perfect story.  This was real news, the stuff no one wanted to hear but needed to.  This was why he tolerated this job: to be the caretaker and raise awareness, to bring truth.  Each page detailed the life of New York City’s homeless and poor, sewing quotes, interviews, and statistics together with a passionate pen.  Whoever wrote this had combined the right amount of fact and opinion, and just reading the paper made him want to donate bread to a homeless shelter. 

            “So this Hugo---writes this story---gives it to you---gives it to me?”

            “Yessir, Jimmy Hugo is the best writer in the city.  He’s choosing to send his work only to you, and he’s asked me to give it to you.  Right proud of meself, I am,” said Fiff, puffing out his skinny chest in pride.

            “Why didn’t he just deliver it himself?”

            “Prefers to remain anonymous, don’t he?  Wouldn’t you, if yous could write like that?”

            Howard stared down at the work.  “Why’d he pick you to deliver it?  No offense, my good Fiff.”

            “None taken, sir.  Ol’ Jimmy and I are pals, we are.  He trusts me to bring this to you.  Does this mean you’ll publish it?”

            He’d never dealt with a situation like this before, but hell, if it brought him this kind of report, he’d have a purple octopus deliver them.  He cleared his throat and said, “I think I will, Mr. Fiff.  Will there be more stories?”

            “Cor, of course there will be, if ya like ’em,” Fiff said, almost giddy with excitement.

            “Well, then, I think we have a deal.  This story will be on the front page of Sunday’s newspaper.  If I gave you money for it, would you promise to give it to Mr. Hugo?”

            “I ain’t a thief!” Fiff said indignantly.  “I’ll give it right to him, I will.  Let’s see the kitty, then!”

            “Hold your horses,” Howard laughed, writing a check.  He felt a little silly, giving money to a street urchin to give to a mysterious dream journalist.  “Here you go.  Tell Mr. Hugo I’m impressed, and am awaiting more.”        

            “Thank you, sir!” Fiff said, pumping Howard’s hand and grabbing the check. 

            Melchior shot up in his chair, jarring him back into Howard’s memory.  “What is this?  I wrote you three perfectly good stories and you throw them away when a little boy runs in and give you some scribbles?” he roared.

            Howard wasn’t afraid.  “Read the article on Sunday, Melchior, and you’ll know what I need for this paper.”

            “Is this a joke?” he asked, clenching his hands into fists.  “Did you arrange for this to happen?  To provoke a response from me?”

            “ I know this seems strange, Gabor, but this is a good story.  I’ll admit, the delivery is unorthodox, but this Hugo has a reason for keeping private about his work.  I need new writers, and I like this report.  End of story.”

            Melchior grabbed his portfolio and coat as he grumbled, “I guess that means I’m fired.”

            “Not at all,” Howard said.  “Melchior, you just need to work on your material a little bit.  I’m saying that as an editor who knows what sells in this business.  But as a friend, I’m saying…” He hesitated.  “You’ve always looked tired.  This past year you’ve begun to look unhealthy.  I think you need to take a break, get some sun, kiss a girl---”

            “Plenty of girls!” Fiff interjected.  The two men stared at him before Howard continued.

            “The main point: take it easy.  Ease some tension, write light, and come back to me in two weeks.”

            Melchior glared at Howard before he stormed out of the office.  “You can’t possibly understand,” he muttered.

            Howard almost went after him, but Fiff popped out of his seat before he could.  “He’ll be back,” he reassured himself as he began to edit Hugo’s report.

            The secretary slid back in after they left.  “Thanks goodness he’s gone!” he breathed, wrinkling his nose at the dirty smears on the floor. 

            Howard sighed.  “Do we have an address on my ten o’clock?”

            “Melchior Gabor?  Um…” he hummed as he searched through an address book.  “Apartment on 52nd.”

            “Good.  Send some nice wine there tomorrow, because that boy needs a pick-me-up.”


	3. Chapter 3

Fiff wasn’t stupid.  Even at eleven, he knew that he was a poor boy, and that his prospects were dimmer than the lighting at any of the pubs on his street.  He had no family to speak of, only the money he begged off people by talking their ears off, and a few other orphan friends that he stuck with.  But he did have a few things going for him: first, he was a big talker; second, he could tell a lot about people just by looking at them, which made him a wonderful judge of character; and third, he had Jimmy Hugo.

            He utilized the second by going after the boy who’d ran out of Mr. Howard’s office.  Check in his coat to give to Jimmy, he scrambled after the boy, calling for him.  “Mister!  Hey, mister!  Got a second?”

            The boy ignored him and sped up, running down the stairs of the New York Times building and out into the busy street.  He would have lost him were it not for the fact that Fiff was an excellent navigator, especially in this city.

            Well, there you go: another thing Fiff had going for him.

            “Mister!  Hang on!  Wait for me, mister!” he yelled, dodging a horse in the street.              “Go home, kid.  Leave me alone,” the boy called over his shoulder.

            “Oh, come on, I only wanna talk for a moment.” 

Fiff had immediately felt, when he saw the boy sitting in the big chair, that they were going to get along famously.  He could just tell.  Of course, the boy---Melcor, wasn’t it?---had seemed hostile, but Fiff could read through that.  This boy---Melcor---was just a kid, like him.  A much older kid, of course, but a scared kid nonetheless.  A sad one, a lonely one.

            “Mr. Melcor?  Please?” he said again, and this time, the older boy stopped.  They were in an alleyway behind a bakery, and Fiff leaned against the brick wall. 

            “Thanks for stopping.  Cor, you’re fast, mister.  Me poor little legs ain’t that fast, and if they were, let me tell ya, I’d be runnin’ races all over the place so the richies could bet on me, and I’d get lots of dough!”

            The older boy smirked.  “You like to talk, don’t you?”

            “Sure do.  One of the things I can do good.  I can’t write like Jimmy, or you.”  Fiff paused, and then held out his hand.  “I’m Fiff.”

            He reluctantly shook it.  “I’m Melchior.”

            “Yeah, I heard ol’ Howard call you that.  Melcor.  Right nice name, init?  Sounds foreign. You foreign, mister?”

            Melchior looked at him strangely.  “Foreign?”

            “Yeah, you know!  Frenchie, Irish, German?  Foreign!”

            Melchior nodded and said, “Oh, yes.  German.  I didn’t know what that word meant.  I’m working on my English.”

            “You’re doin’ right well, then.  No accent or nuffin’.  You sound like a Yankee, all right,” Fiff said.  “Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you.  You seemed angry wiv me.”

            “Well, it’s not every day that a child takes my job,” Melchior sighed, sitting down on a sack of flour.

            “I didn’t take nuffin’!  You still have your job, mister.  Don’t be angry wiv me, sir, all you have to do is write some more pieces,” Fiff argued, trying to climb up the sack of flour to sit with him.

            Melchior was trying desperately to be annoyed with Fiff, but it was getting harder.  The kid had a quality about him.  Likable, he supposed.  It wasn’t really his fault that Howard hadn’t liked the essays, anyway, since he wasn’t going to publish them before Fiff arrived anyway. 

            He helped pull Fiff up the pile of sacks and was surprised at how light the boy was.

            “Thanks again, mister.  I knew you was a nice guy, I could just tell!  I told meself, ‘This Melcor is going to be your friend.’ ”

            “Melchior.  MEL-kee-or,” he tried to pronounce it right for the urchin, but Fiff ignored it.

            “So you ain’t angry about the whole story thing?” he asked. 

            “I suppose not,” Melchior sighed.  “My stories were trash, anyway.  I could have done better.”  He took his portfolio and opened it, pointing to the essays.  “He doesn’t want sad, you see.”

            Fiff grabbed the essays.  “Then why write sad?”

            Melchior thought about it for a second.  “I think it’s because it’s all I really know how to write.”

            “You shoulda read some of Jimmy’s early stuff.  Right nasty trash, it was, too.”

            Melchior got out a cigarette as he let Fiff ramble about his early life.  It was calming to listen to the boy talk, as he obviously had it worse that Melchior did but seemed so enthusiastic and friendly.  And it was true, Howard didn’t like the pieces and he would have something new for next time.  It would be like this day never happened.    

As Fiff talked, Melchior felt himself relax.  He was kind of funny, the way he talked so quickly and the way his dirty coat was so big around him.  Melchior could see the tattered rags under the coat and the skinny stomach with the ribs poking out.  Come to think of it, everything about Fiff was angles: pokey knees, stick-like legs stuffed into huge shoes, all elbows and joints.  Fiff’s face was so animated that it distracted people from the starving body beneath it. 

“Me mum and pa died long ago, don’t know what happened to them.  Been on my own for as long as I could remember, begging and the like.  I have me own ring back on 14th, though.  A right good gang, they are, with Toby and Metty, Dreenie, and Coffie.  I met Jimmy a year ago, you know!  So nice, so good he was, always coming to visit me and the kids.  Writing all the time.  Soon he came to visit every week, and we became the best of friends.  He read me everything, and you should have heard some of his early stuff!  It was right depressing, it was!”

“Depressing?” Melchior asked.  “What do you mean?”

“You know, like your stuff.  Heartbreak and imprisonment, hurt and suffering, the like.  Scary stuff, I told him so.  After that, he started writing about us poor folk, and now he has the story for Mr. Howard!” He swung his legs and looked up at Melchior with a pair of sparkling light eyes.  “What about you, Melcor?”

“What about me?” Melchior said.

“Well, how’d you get here?  In ol’ New York City?”

Melchior blew air through his teeth.  “Long story, I guess.”

“We got time.”

“Where do I begin?” he asked to the heavens.  “I got on a ship when I was 14 and stowed away to America.  Went through bad times.  Got out of them.  Now I write for the Times.”

“Short story,” Fiff commented.

Melchior laughed bitterly.  He might like this Fiff fellow a little bit, but he wasn’t opening up to anyone. 

 

His past was too frightening for anyone’s ears.

 

“Well, Mr. Fiff, this has been a pleasant time, but I should be off.  I’m in need of a drink,” said Melchior amiably.  He helped the boy off the flour as he protested.

“Let me come with you!” Fiff pleaded.

“You’re a little young, kid.  Maybe next time.”

“So there’ll be a next time, mister?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Melchior began to walk away when Fiff noticed the portfolio still sitting on the sack of flour.

“Hey, Melcor, you left your papers!”

He turned around and rolled his eyes.  “Keep them, Fiff.  I don’t really care for them anymore.  Howard was right: they are trash.  Goodbye!”

“I won’t tell anyone your secret, mister,” Fiff called after him.

Melchior froze in his tracks before swiveling around.  Fiff could see his face gripped by horror.  “W—what secret?”

Fiff stared straight at him before walking up to him.  His blue eyes stared solemnly into Melchior’s shocked grey-green ones.  “Why you’re so unhappy. You put up a good front, mister, but no one can really be that cool.  You’re hiding something, you are.”

“I’m not hiding anything!” Melchior hissed as Fiff put a comforting hand on his. 

“It’s okay, mister.  I know you’re lonely and sad.  I’ll fix it for ya.  I’m your friend now.”

All Melchior could do was stutter before he turned and walked away.

 

Fiff watched him go, terribly excited.  He’d made a new friend today, and his Melcor needed help.  In fact, he’d bet Melcor didn’t have any other friends besides Mr. Howard.

Grabbing the portfolio, he was determined to make Melcor happy again.  Whatever was making him sad couldn’t be that bad, and Fiff was very good at cheering people up.  It was another one of those things he had going for him.

In the meantime, he thought Jimmy might like to read the essays Melcor’d given him.  He had a feeling Jimmy would like Melcor’s writing, and would be thrilled that the story had been accepted.  Fiff darted into the streets in search of the pub where he always met Jimmy, clutching the portfolio and check close to his chest.

“NO!” Melchior cried.  He struggled against his sheets, which he’d tangled around him like a straitjacket, while hyperventilating in panic.  Screaming as he fell off the bed, he continued to struggle out of the sheets.

            “NO!  NO!  PLEASE!  NO!  HELP, PLEASE!” he screamed, drawing the attention of a tenant upstairs.  The young man shoved the old door open and stumbled into the room, noticing the writhing form of Melchior.

            “Hey, hey, hey!  Pipe down!” he said, pulling the sheets away from him.  “You’re fine!  What happened to you?”

            Melchior took some deep breaths and wiped the sweat off his brow.  Leaning against the bed, he wrapped his arms around his knees.  “Nightmare,” he explained.  “Just scared me a little.”

            “A little?  You yell like this each night, I hear you.”

            “I’m fine,” Melchior insisted, fixing the young man with a penetrating glare that frightened him off.

            “Okay, okay, you’re welcome!  I’ll just leave, then!”

            Melchior called thanks after him, shoving the door closed. 

            The nightmare still stayed under his eyelids, and he immediately regretted trying to take a nap that afternoon.  But Howard’s words about his appearance had gotten to him, and he’d been determined to get some sleep to improve it. 

            He really didn’t look all that different than he had four years ago: the same sandy brown curls that needed a trim, the same hazel eyes and light skin, same strong jaw and cheeks.  Why, then, did he seem so different?

            He checked in his looking-glass.  It was true, his skin seemed paler and tighter, drawn across his cheekbones.  His eyes were dimmer, and the grey-purple circles under them really did make Howard’s words true.  Melchior looked unhealthy. 

            “Nothing I can do about it,” he mumbled to himself.  “I can’t sleep without waking up the entire apartment building.”

            He’d resolved, when he came home, to take better care of himself and to get started immediately on the new essays, but the nightmares had won again when he’d tried to catch up on sleep.  Melchior groaned, wondering what he had to do to catch a break.  What this was, it wasn’t really living.  It was going through the motions.  He followed the same routine every day, writing only to earn money, reading only to escape, sleeping only to try, and eating only to live.  Nothing caught his interest.

            He knew it needed to stop, once and for all.  He might not be able to battle the nightmares, but he could surely battle himself and what he had become.  A sliver of the boy he used to be existed in his facial features; it had to exist inside himself, too.  What he was now was not Melchior Gabor, he was a shadow.  Hollow, empty.  A zombie.

            He also knew that, maybe if he could be who he had meant to be, they would no longer haunt him.

            Maybe that was the reason he had any dreams at all.

            It wouldn’t be easy, and he had no idea where to start, but an idea would come to him soon.  It had to.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, kid,” the bartender said, rinsing a glass as he leaned over the bar.  “Are you sure you’re supposed to be here?”

            “Sure am,” Fiff replied easily, swinging his legs from the tall stool he’d managed to climb.  “My friend’s comin’ here.  She’ll be meetin’ me any minute, now!”

            The bartender suppressed a chuckle.  “The young man’s got a date now? And what girl in her right mind agreed to come to this establishment, unchaperoned?”

            “My girl,” Fiff said with a shrug.  “Jimmy don’t need a chaperone, does she?  I told her a pub wasn’t the best place, but she tells me this is somewhere she could go without being spotted.  What’s a boy to do?”

            The man surveyed the bar for the girl in question, but the tables were only filled with rough-looking men.  He looked back to the boy in disbelief, rolling his eyes when Fiff gave him a fearless, beaming smile.  “Let me know when your girl gets here, won’t you?  I can’t have a young boy loitering about.”

            “Don’t worry about a thing, sir!” Unbelievably, the boy gave him a wink and continued to swing his legs.

            Fiff didn’t really care that Jimmy had chosen a pub to meet: he’d been in much worse places and this was one of the better ones in this part of town.  If he’d had any inkling that Jimmy wouldn’t be safe here, he’d have made her choose a different place, but it was more of the tone that gave him pause.  Jimmy seemed so out of place in a pub, even if she was dressed for it.

            The bell over the door jingled as it opened, letting a moment of sunshine flood the room as she stepped inside and sent Fiff running towards her.

            “Jimmy!” he yelled as her ran right into her, his words clear despite being muffled by her coat.  “We did it!  He’s publishing the story!  We did it!”

            “ _What?_ ” she whispered, shocked, before numbly putting her arms around the little boy.  Fiff couldn’t see her, but he continued to grin like a Cheshire cat and repeat his good news into the buttons of her coat.

            “Jimmy, I went right up to him, I did, and he read it right there in front of me and said he’d put it on the front page and gave me a check and everything---”

            “Front page?” she asked, and she finally snapped out of her reverie and picked him up.  “Front page? Oh, Fiff!”  She spun him around the room and squealed along with him as they twirled.  Surely this had to be a dream!

            “Hey!” the bartender called from the sink.  “Are you going to buy a drink or what?”

            “Oh—of course,” she said, carrying Fiff over and plopping him on a stool.  She fished inside one of her enormous pockets for a dime and handed it over to the man.  “Do you have any tea?”

            “Are you kidding me?” he asked, raising his eyebrows condescendingly.

            Her smile faltered.  “What?”

            “Honey, this is a bar, not a tea parlor.  We sell drinks here.  You might want to revise your order.”

            “I’m a paying customer,” she said stubbornly, bridling at being called ‘honey’ by a stranger.  Fiff gave her hand a little squeeze. 

            The bartender sighed.  “Is coffee close enough?”

            “Yes, thank you.”

            “Two coffees, then,” he said, muttering under his breath as he got to work.

            Jimmy pulled herself onto a chair, struggling a bit with the large coat.  Fiff suppressed a giggle: they were a pair, in their huge coats and mismatching hats.  Of course, Fiff had no choice but to wear what was available, and Jimmy’s dress was her own choice.

            “Tell me everything!” she said, eyes gleaming.  “Tell me what happened when you got there, tell me what he said!”

            Fiff grinned before launching into his story.  “I ran right into the big office, and man, it was a big place!  The entire building was full of paintings and shiny banisters, it was!  I ran all the way up to the office, and they was a right mess.  Papers and chairs everywhere.  You know,” he said confidentially, leaning in to whisper, “I don’t think they’re nearly as organized as they seem.”

            “They’re a newspaper.  I’d imagine they have lots of deadlines to meet, that’s how they work,” she said, putting her chin in her hand.

            “Whatever you say, Jim, you’re the expert,” he continued.  “Anyway, I ran right into Mr. Howard’s big, rich room, but some guy caught me from behind!  Cor, I had to put up a fight!  I hit and bit and hurt him all over!”

            Jimmy groaned and slapped her forehead in frustration.  “You fought a man from the office?”

            “You told me to get it to Mr. Howard by—what’d ya say? ‘Whatever means necessary.’  And I told ya I would.  Consider it necessary.  Anyway, I got into the office, and Mr. Howard liked me lots, I could tell.  I think he thought I was funny!”

            “You are funny, Fiff,” she said affectionately, ruffling his hair.

            “I know.  Stop interrupting!” he chuckled.  “He thought I wrote him the story, but cor, when I handed him your portfolly--portfolder--”

            “Portfolio.”    

            “Portfolio.  I handed it to him, and his eyes bugged outta his head!  It looked like he’d tasted something bad!  He was shocked at how right good it was.  And he reads it and says, ‘Mr. Fiff, I think we have a deal,’ and he promised to print it on the front page of Sunday’s newspaper!  And he gave me this!”

            Fiff produced the check from the depths of his coat, and he waved it in front of Jimmy’s huge eyes before she snatched it.

            “Fifteen dollars!?” she said incredulously, smoothing out the check on the bar table as the bartender passed them their coffees.  Fiff drank his quickly without even bothering to let it cool down.  “That’s…well, that’s quite a lot.”

            “He wants you to write more!” he said happily.  “D’ya think you will?”

            Jimmy paused, her eyes still huge from this news. This was what she’d worked for, and everything she’d hoped for.  She’d expected something to go wrong, and didn’t even know if Fiff could get inside the building.  But he had done the impossible.  They had done the impossible.

            She’d be crazy to try this process again.  She’d be even crazier not to.

            “I think I will, Fiff,” she said with a small smile, blowing steam off her coffee.  Glancing at Fiff, she couldn’t help but put down her mug and sweep him up in a hug.  “Oh, thank you, thank you, _thank you_!  This was my dream!”

            “I know. I just wish you could do it yourself,” he sighed.

            Jimmy playfully swatted at his arm when she put him down.  “You know my situation, sweetheart.  This is the only way things will work.”

            He laughed.  “At least this way I have an excuse to see ya!”

            “I’d find a way to visit you regardless,” she said, checking her watch.  Fiff marveled at it for the swift moment it was visible: the fine golden watch seemed out of place on her, in her baggy man’s clothes. 

            Speaking of which---“Your hair’s showing, Jim.”

            “Really?” she said, stuffing a hank of brown hair under her cap.  “I’m using all of my pins to keep it close to my head, but pieces always fall down.  I should just shave it all off, shouldn’t I?”

            “No!” Fiff squeaked. 

            “Go down to the barbershop?  Sell what’s left?”

            “No, no, no!  That isn’t funny!” he fumed.  “I love your hair.”

            “You just like it because it’s clean,” she assured him.  “You should see my sister, Alice.  Her hair is like a princess’s.  Patrick told me he married her just so he could see her hair every day.”

            “That’s a fib if I ever heard one!” Fiff scoffed.

            “Of course, he was just joking,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the forehead before sliding off the stool.  “I’m off, then.  Wilhelmina will be cross if I’m late again.”

            “You should just come live with me,” Fiff said, grabbing her hand as they made their way for the door.  “I’ll make Dreenie move his cabbage collection and everything.”

            “Stop it!  You’re making me feel bad about where I live,” she moaned, kneeling down to his level.  “If anyone’s moving, it’s you.  I’m finding a way to move you in with me.  Maybe you could be an assistant to the cook, or something.”

            Fiff rolled his eyes before patting her on the head.  “I’m fine, Jimmy.  Go on home.  Wouldn’t want to keep your mum waiting.”

            “You’re right.  I’ll be back in a week for sure, with something new for Mr. Howard.  Take care, sweetheart!” she called over her shoulder as she began her walk home.

            Fiff rocked on his heels for a moment before remembering.  “Jimmy!” he yelled after her. 

            She wheeled around, hypervigilant.  “Yes?”

            Fiff ran as fast as his little legs could carry him and pulled the leather portfolio out of his coat, giddy with excitement.  “I met someone today.”

            “Oh?  Did you happen to swipe something from them too?” she asked suspiciously as he took the portfolio from him.  “I told you to stop stealing, Fiff.  Next week I’ll bring you five dollars and you’re to spend it on things you need.  I’m looking for a place for you.”

            “I didn’t steal it,” he said, rolling his eyes.  “And keep all fifteen.  You’re going to need it.”

            Jimmy ignored this comment and opened the portfolio, softening at the sight of the pages inside. 

            “I met a writer today,” Fiff continued.  “Like you.  He was in the office wiv Mr. Howard, and we had a right nice chat after.  He’s not much older than you, you know.”

            “Is that so?”

            “Yep.  He was a pretty sad-looking guy, a lonely one.  Anyway, he gave me this when he left.  It was what he was writing.”    

            “Didn’t he want to keep them?”

            “No, he thought they was trash.  More sad stuff.  So, I thought of the stuff you wrote last year, and I knew you were looking for new reading, so…I brought it for ya.”

            Jimmy scanned the pages tentatively, a slow smile spreading across her face as she noticed the curves and loops of the cramped, messy scrawl.  “What was his name?”

            “Melcor.  He was a German kid.  But you couldn’t tell or nuffin’!  He had a Yankee accent and everything.  Must’ve had English back in his German school.  D’ya s’pose they speak English in Germany?”

            “I imagine they speak German,” she said.

            “Well, it don’t matter.  He…” Fiff paused before looking up into Jimmy’s grey eyes seriously.  “Can I tell you something?”

            “What about him?”

            Fiff wasn’t sure how to phrase it.  “D’ya know…how animals that get kicked around a lot…they have this look in their eyes?”

            Jimmy’s eyes darkened.  “Yes.  When they’ve suffered.”

            “Yeah.  They have this pained look, like they was …tortured?” Fiff asked, looking for approval with his word choice.  Jimmy gave a nod.  “Like they’re afraid and tortured?  Well…Melcor had the same look in his eyes.”

            Jimmy didn’t say anything, but immediately began to read the essays inside as Fiff continued.  “Melcor looked like this wild animal, a wild, kicked animal, and Jimmy, I felt so terrible for him.”  He stopped in his tracks and pulled his somber expression into a cheerful one as he informed her of his plan.  “I’m going to help him.  I’m going to make him happy again, and his eyes will get better.”

            Jimmy smiled.  “If anyone can make a sad man a happy one, it’s you, Fiff.  I’ll read these.  You get right on that.”

            “I will.  Bye, Jimmy!” he said with a wave, running in the opposite direction.

           

            She began her long trek home without the usual alertness.  She made the trips here every week, sometimes twice a week, and she’d gotten used to the poorer parts of the city.  She’d even grown comfortable with some of them, but she didn’t trust anyone in these parts but Fiff.  All she knew was that she was in a rough part of the city and alone, and she had to be careful not to draw attention to herself lest she be captured for ransom, if someone recognized her for what she was, or for---well, less savory purposes.

            Still, this author’s words dulled her other senses.  She walked onward, engrossed.  It was clear that Fiff’s new friend was an incredible writer, and intelligent as well, but that wasn’t what made her love the stories. 

            She loved them because they were true.  Well, to be sure, they were depressing, but she was depressed, so they spoke to her. 

She had no right to be depressed: her secret dream had been made real, she had darling Fiff, and she was well cared for and provided for in every sense of the word.  She had no reason to complain.

            It didn’t stop her from feeling as if everything was closing in on her. 

            She just finished the papers as she neared her home, stuffing them inside her coat and pulling her cap as far over her head as she could.  Turning onto her block and dashing between the small area between her home and her neighbors’, she hurriedly opened the wrought-iron gate with a servant’s key and entered the servants’ quarters. 

Before she closed the gate that sealed her off from the rest of the world, she thought of what Fiff had said about his new friend’s eyes: the torture and pain in them.  A secret thought entered the most private part of her mind as she thought further: had Fiff been able to detect the same look in her eyes, or was her act so good that even he had not seen it?  And if he hadn’t, did that mean that there was no one who truly knew how close she was to giving up?

 

            “Let it never be said,” chuckled Melchior weakly as he carried the huge basket into his room, “that Norman Howard doesn’t know how to treat his friends.”  Setting the giant wicker thing on his bed, he inspected its contents: fabulous wine, a pile of rolls, even a choice hunk of ham.  The perfect fall feast.  There was even this Sunday’s paper.

            Melchior popped open the bottle of wine and drank straight from it; savage, indeed, but it made him feel more relaxed and even a little more cheery as he bit into a roll and flipped open the paper.  A small card fell out with Howard’s emblem and a quick message: “Take it easy, Gabor.  Bring me some real news next Tuesday.”

            He scanned the print for his favorite journalists’ pieces before checking the front page.  On seeing the article, he frowned.  He’d forgotten that the Hugo piece would be up today, and it still disgruntled him.  He’d done his best over the past few days to get over it and start shaping up, but he truly had no idea where to start.

            “ ‘What New York Doesn’t See’,” he mumbled, saying the title aloud before he delved into it.

            It took him a good ten minutes to read it, and then reread it.  It was, after all, the article that had supplanted his, even though his work was hardly ever front page worthy.  But Melchior would admit that it was a good story.  The author was obviously a little self-righteous, parroting the whole “our poor are starving” thing.  He was poor, after all, but it hardly made him weep for more money.  It was directed at the rich, of course, but the story had some good facts and some descriptive bits that—Melchior hated to admit it—were a little too graphic to make him feel comfortable with his city’s treatment of the poor.  He was once a champion of rights: better education, equality, a better world and all that.  This sounded like something he might have written once.

            It was gushy, though.  A better author might have used these facts to give more reason to a cause, instead of use opinions and values to guilt people into it.  But that fact that it was something younger Melchior might have liked made him pin it to his wall.  Inspiration for later, perhaps?

            He felt a sudden overwhelming desire to get out of his flat that pushed past all of his other emotions.  He’d spent the entire week trying to catch up on some sleep, and he’d done a good job thus far.  Melchior had harbored a secret, foolish hope that the first night he’d pushed past the nightmares and let himself sleep for more than two hours in a row, his under-eye circles would disappear and he’d turn back into the strapping young boy he was.  At the very least, his skin had brightened considerably, and so had his attitude. 

            But forcing himself to go to sleep despite his fear was enough of a mental battle that he assumed the better attitude was just not having enough energy to have a bad one.

            Pulling on his shabby coat, he locked up his flat and fled down the stairs, and the guilt that constantly throbbed at his temples lessened as he walked into the clear new day.

 


	5. Chapter 5

“It looks unseasonably warm out today,” John Keeper said carefully, finishing his compositions from the window seat.

            Wilhelmina looked up from the piano for a moment before giving her only son an indulgent smile.  “Indeed, for October.  Perhaps we will ask Annie to fetch us some apples.  They should be in season.”

            John rolled his eyes and surveyed the stuffy sitting room.  He, along with all the other Keeper children, hated it most out of all the room of the enormous house.  The drapes kept almost all of the light out of the room, which was full of dust.  All of the furniture was stiff and precisely placed to show off the grandeur of the sitting room.

            “Marny, I should very much like to go for a walk later today,” he continued, turning this time to look for his sister.  “Would you like to accompany me?”

            She sniffled as she looked up from her watercolors and easel.  “I told you not to call me Marny anymore, John.  My name is Mary.  Mary Elizabeth Keeper.”

            “Would you like to accompany me on a walk, _Mary_?” he tried again, a pinch of sarcasm in his voice.

            “Watch your tone, John,” his mother said sternly, rising slowly from her chair and walking over to Mary’s canvas.  “Darling, that looks lovely.”

            “Thank you, Mother,” she replied sweetly, and with a shake of her blonde curls she was at it again with her paints.

            John had never been more bored.  And this went on every _day_.

            Silently, he put his compositions down and walked over to the bookcase on the wall.  The books were basically for show, with gorgeous leather spines and golden lettering, but one person in the family bothered with them at least.

            “Gemma?” he asked hopefully, tapping his other older sister on the shoulder.  “Would you go for a walk with me?”

            “Hmm?” she said distractedly, not taking her eyes off the book spines.  She trailed her fingers over them all before settling on _Great Expectations_ , pulling it out of the bookcase and smirking as the other books slumped without it.  “Did you want a book, too, Jacky?”

            “No, I wanted to go for a walk.”

            “You’re twelve now, can’t you go on your own?” she asked, leaning against the wall and cracking open the book.

            “No, he cannot,” their mother said.  “And stop leaning on the wall, Gemma, you will ruin your posture.  We didn’t send you to Cliffwood to get the posture of a moose, and it is most unladylike.”

Gemma cringed at the mention of her old school for girls, which she’d only graduated from a year ago on her sixteenth.  She instead sat down on a small embroidered chair, looking utterly miserable.

            Their mother waved her hand to call over a maid.  “Ready Mr. Keeper’s coat and hat.  He will go for a walk with his nurse when he is finished with his compositions.”

            “I am old enough to go for a walk on my own,” he pointed out, but it was useless.  As the only Keeper male child, he was always to be watched.  “Jimmy?” he said softly, pleading with his eyes for Gemma to save him, but she was already in her book.  Blasted Dickens.

            He retreated back to the window seat and scribbled off a few answers before his nurse arrived.  At least he would get to go outside, and it looked marvelous.

           

            Gemma waited for John to leave, silently cursing herself for letting him down.  She loved Jacky, she really did, but at least he would inherit and be able to have fun as a man in a few years.  She’d be lucky if she ended up married off to someone nice and handsome at the very least, like Alice. 

            “Would Miss Gemma like some tea?” asked Annie, their newest maid. 

            “No, thank you, Annie,” she said, trying her best to pay attention to her book.  It was her favorite, after all.

            “Get her some tea, Annie,” said her mother.  “We need to put some color in those cheeks.  You look in ill health, Gemma.  Harry wouldn’t like it.”

            “Harry wouldn’t like it, indeed,” muttered Mary, snickering.

            Gemma ignored her and focused on the words until her eyes were squinting in concentration.  Wilhelmina walked over and patted Gemma’s hair awkwardly.  “What are you reading, dear?”

            “ _Great Expectations_ , by Charles Dickens,” she said.  “It’s my favorite book.”

            “Did you read it often with your friends at Cliffwood?”

            Gemma wasn’t exactly sure how to explain to her mother that she hadn’t really made any friends at Cliffwood, so she just glossed over the question.  “Would you like to hear a passage, Mother?”

            “Not right now, though I’m sure your skills as an orator are greatly improved.”

Mrs. Keeper rose and left the room in search of Annie with the tea.

            “You know she wants you to marry Harry,” hissed her sister from the easel.  “While you were gone, it was all anyone could talk about.  They’re organizing an engagement for you two.”

            Gemma wasn’t fazed.  “I came back from boarding school a year ago, Marny.  If there were any real engagement plans, I would have heard about them by now.  Besides, your coming-out party is this winter.  If anyone is to be engaged to Harry, it will be you.”

            Mary sniffed.  “I don’t understand why you didn’t enjoy school.  It was wonderful for me, and for Alice!”

            “It was five years of hell, Marny.”

            “ _Gemma! Bite your tongue!_ ” she squealed, dropping her brushes.  “If Mother hears you curse like that, you’ll be sent to a reformatory or something terrible!  Cliffwood was a wonderful place, with a great program.  We came out perfect.”

            “Perfect,” Gemma said bitterly. 

            “We are!  We are the cream of Manhattan!  Gem,” she said sadly, sitting with her younger sister.  “I know you don’t like it.  I know you don’t.  You were the one who played pirates and explorers when we were young.  But it isn’t done.  You remember Alice?”

            “Of course!  She’s our oldest sister!”

            “You know she wanted to go to Paris, to sing.  And with our money, she could have.  But it isn’t done.”

            “But she had Patrick.  He thinks the stars shine out of her fingertips.  How could she not accept her fate with a man like Patrick?” Gemma moaned.

            Mary considered this.  “This dress is very pretty,” she said, changing the subject.  She fiddled with the high lace collar and buttons.  “Purple.  It looks nice on you, with your eyes and hair color.”

            She piled Gemma’s long brown hair on top of her head, and both girls couldn’t help but giggle.  “Look how pretty you are!  I do believe you look like Alice!”

            “Go back to your painting, Marny,” she sighed, closing her book.  “I’m fine, I really am.  I just get frustrated.  It was lonely at school.”

            Mary did as she was told as Annie and Wilhelmina entered with some tea.  “Here, some tea for you, miss,” Annie said sympathetically as Gemma looked out the window.

            “Thanks, Annie.  Actually,” she said, quickly sipping at the tea cup.  “I was going to go pass out food at the homeless shelter, and then maybe go to church.  Do I have permission to go?”

            “As long as you take a nurse with you, dear,” her mother said distractedly from the piano, where she had resettled and begun to play Für Elise. 

            “I’ll bring Esther,” she said easily, slipping the book behind her back and exiting the room.  “I’ll be back by six, Mother.”

            Mary watched her go with a sigh, and her mother didn’t notice.  Annie watched her go only with suspicion.   She was young enough to know that girl was up to something.

           

            Gemma laughed as soon as she was out of earshot, tiptoeing downstairs and through the winding passes of the house until she got to the servant’s quarters.  As always, old Esther was in the storeroom snoring with a bottle of brandy in her hand.  No one would find her in here, so Gemma’s excuse was as good as gold. 

She quickly slipped out of the velvet dress and left it in a heap on the floor of the storeroom, grabbing her clothes for these excursions that Patrick had been kind enough a to leave behind years ago.  Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about her bodice, corset, or chemise, but she threw the old shirt and slacks over them as best she could.  She’d look disheveled, which was what she wanted, anyway.  Finally, slipping on the shabby overcoat she’d been careful to get as dirty on her trips as possible, she checked her reflection in a looking-glass and considered herself good to go.  Not bothering with the pins, she stuffed her long hair under the newsboy cap and headed out the door with a pen and paper.  There were stories awaiting discovery.


	6. Chapter 6

“Ahh!” she sighed happily as the clean, fresh air filled her lungs.  “Jacky was right, it’s perfect!”  5th Avenue looked beautiful in the fall, lined with austere-looking mansions and golden trees.  She looked out of place in her shabby clothing on the richest street in New York.  She took care not to be recognized by any neighbors enjoying a walk and started her sprint for the slums.  Journalist intuition tugged at her like an invisible cable, pulling her toward new stories waiting to be sniffed out.  Some new scandal would be preferable, as her readers wouldn’t read the plight of the homeless for long, but as someone with so much wealth, it made Gemma sick to see everything that was wrong with their city.

            This was the secret life of Jimmy Hugo, journalist extraordinaire who had tugged the heartstrings of thousands today: she was really just a 17-year-old girl trapped by a lifestyle that was slowly killing her.  She’d been making these escapes since she came back from the dreaded Cliffwood last year.

            The Cliffwood School for Girls was a staple in any young, respectable lady’s education, where they taught you proper etiquette and such.  Gemma, like her two older sisters, was sent off at the age of 11, but she hadn’t succeeded where her sisters had.  With their obvious beauty, they’d made friends immediately and soaked in the knowledge of becoming a veritable New York princess, but Gemma had been left alone with her books for five years.  On the one hand, though, this was where her skill for writing really developed.

            When she finally got to her destination, she did a quick search for Fiff, but he must have been out that day.  Usually she could find him just hanging around, talking to random strangers, but she assumed he was in another part of the city.

            All around, the buildings were dusty and brown, and people littered the streets in various states of distress: some lying on the sidewalk, some begging on the corners, some coughing in alleyways.  Gemma resisted the urge to gag at their pathetic states, so she pushed on and got out her paper and pen.

            Settling on a crate, she started her story-hunting routine by observing.  She scribbled down all the details of the street, leaving nothing out.  If she included absolutely everything, a pattern might emerge.

            “Extra! Extra!  Read all about it!  The real story of the slums of New York!” a young boy yelled, hauling papers in a wagon as he screamed.  Gemma suppressed a secret smile, but it immediately turned into a wail of shock as a shadow passed over----and she found herself _soaked_ from head to toe. 

 

            “Damn it!” Melchior growled as the children of the street gleefully ran away with their tub.  How five scrawny street urchins had managed to haul about twenty gallons of water and splash him with it was beyond him.  How he hadn’t seen them coming just boggled the mind even further.

            Well, he was covered in water all over, but he was thankful it wasn’t something worse.  Water he could deal with.

            “No!” he heard someone shriek from behind, and he spun around to identify them, swinging droplets in his wake.  It was a young person, obviously, by their build and voice, but the person was in quite a mess.  Ink was streaming up and down their skinny arms, and papers were everywhere in various soggy states.  There was even ink on their face, streaky and giving them the appearance of a sad raccoon. 

            Melchior took a few seconds to observe them, still in a bit of a shock, unfortunately.  The young person, whom he had decided was a girl by her higher-pitched voice, pawed desperately at the sheets of paper around her, trying to gather them into organized piles but moaning at the unintelligible smudges the water had reduced them to.        He shook his head, remembering himself, and crouched down to her level, offering a hand.  “Do you need help?” he asked, embarrassed that he hadn’t displayed these manners before.  Melchior might have been many things, but he was at least a gentleman.

            “N-no, I’m fine,” the girl said, refusing the hand and continuing to grab papers. 

            He unconsciously gathered a few himself, bunching them together and trying to blow on them to dry them. 

            “They won’t dry that way,” she said in a slightly annoyed voice, grabbing the final pieces and stashing them away under her coat.  “I’ll have to put them in front of a fire, later.”

            “Won’t you ruin your shirt that way?” Melchior asked.

            For the first time, the girl looked up at him, utterly confused.  “What?  Oh, my shirt?” she asked, pulling the papers out and inspecting her side.  True enough, black ink stains had ruined it.

            Noticing her appearance for the first time since she was drenched, the girl gave a little horrified cry.  She held her hands out in front of her, finally seeing the streaky blacks stripes over her arms and clothes.  “Mother is going to kill me,” she groaned.

 

            _This cannot get any worse_ , Gemma thought glumly, seeing what a mess she was really in.  The ink would take forever to get off her skin, even if she was permitted to bathe, and she had no excuse for her mother.  The clothes she used for her story hunts had to be replaced, and she had no idea where to get new ones.  And, to top it all off, her extensive notes had been reduced to sopping piles of trash.

            She was going to crumple them up and throw them away, but the boy took them from her before she could.

            The boy.  Oh, yes, there had been a boy who’d gotten wet, too.  He was trying to help her, or at least she thought so.  She’d been too preoccupied trying to save her pages to really pay attention to what was going on around her.

            He was looking at her papers intently.  “I think if you put them to dry in front of a fire, some words might be salvaged,” he decided as Gemma got a good look at him.  The children hadn’t held back with the water on either of them, and his jacket and clothes were plastered to his body in a sad, droopy sort of way.  The boy’s hair hung from his head a little like a wet puppy’s fur, but at least he hadn’t had a pen on him, or else he’d look just as terrible as she probably did.

            He gave her a small smile.  “Are you all right?”

            “Just fine,” she said in a small voice, grabbing the papers back.  “I’ll take these home, then.  Are you all right?”

            He shrugged, standing up.  “It’s just water.  It can’t hurt me.”

            Gemma groaned, getting up as well and shaking water and ink off her coat and tucking the escaping locks of brown hair under her hat, which she promptly pulled down over her face just in case.

            The boy frowned.  “Well, in your case, it isn’t just water, is it?”

            “No,” she grumbled, thoroughly annoyed.

            Unbelievably, he got out a soggy handkerchief and offered it to her, which she reluctantly took and wiped her face with.  Luckily for her, a significant amount of ink was rubbed off her face; his handkerchief was completely blackened.

            “Erm,” she said, holding out the kerchief but then pulling it back.  “I’m really very sorry.”

            “Don’t worry,” he replied.  “You can keep it.  I feel terrible for you.”

            “It wasn’t your fault,” she finished a little curtly.  “Thank you.”

            She lifted her gaze, which she was surprised to know she could actually do in an embarrassing situation such as this, and gave him a quick nod with a sharp smile.

            And Gemma began to walk home, thoroughly beaten by a few children and humiliated, on top of it all.

 

            Melchior saw the slight thing’s face for only a moment before she turned on her heel and started her brisk walk in the opposite direction.  Her face had been obscured by ink, wet hair, and that funny hat until she’d used his handkerchief to wipe away the streaks and given him a farewell nod.

            Left in her wake, Melchior was about to turn and leave himself---he needed to change and dry off at his place---when he saw what the girl had left behind. 

            Underneath a solitary sheet of translucent paper, not yet written on but wet nonetheless, was a waterlogged hardback book.  Melchior called after the girl to no avail: she was already gone, and nowhere to be seen. 

            Melchior did the only thing he could think to do; he picked up the book and flipped through it.  It was once a handsome book, with a fine leather cover and fine illustrations, but each page was completely soaked.

            He inspected the pages, looking specifically to see if the book was worth saving.  The words were not all that smudged.  Nothing a little hanging out to dry couldn’t fix, and the girl was gone without so much as a name to follow. 

            “ _Great Expectations_ ,” he whispered to himself, reading the title page.  “Interesting.”


	7. Chapter 7

 “Gabor!” Howard said happily, clapping the young man on the back as he entered the office uncharacteristically early.  “You’re here, and you look well.  Been getting some sleep for once?”

            Melchior kept a terse smile on his face if only for the sake of his friend, but he didn’t answer the question.  With the regular hours of sleep and strict meal regimen, his skin’s natural glow had been restored, and when he did smile, it was more of the impish grin he’d once worn. 

            The circles remained, along with the few other odd tics Melchior had picked up over the course of the past five years, but he didn’t want to go there.  He felt that he was doing something right, at least for his health.  

            Sitting down in the large leather chair, he tossed the papers over to Howard’ desk.

            “Some things never change,” muttered Howard, rolling his eyes and starting to read.  “This one’s good: ‘A Meditation on Innocence’.  Sweet.”

            “I wrote it with a few friends in mind,” Melchior said innocently, looking skyward and twisting a curl around his fingertip. 

            “Melchior Gabor has friends his age.  Doubtful.  Ah, ‘Children of the Streets’!” Howard continued, scanning the pages with an alien enthusiasm.  “My prayers have been answered!  He’s really back, ladies and gentlemen!”  He peered over his glasses patronizingly.  “Taking hints from Hugo’s article, are we?”

            “I might have gotten a little inspiration.  Hugo wrote about the poor of our city, I wrote about the children.  You’ll find a lot more horrifying truth and heartbreak when it comes to their stories.  The adults can fend for themselves, but homeless children…well, there aren’t a lot of options.”

            “I’m not complaining,” Howard said.  “This stuff is good.  It’s better than good.  It’s just what I needed, and what I knew you were capable of writing.  Not heavy in the least.  And finally,” he pulled out the last essay, “a book review?  Not your strongest point, but I hope you picked a better one this time.”

            “Goethe’s Faust is a wonderful play,” Melchior argued, feeling quite relaxed at this easy banter.  “But this one was very intriguing.  I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.”

            “Dickens’ book?  _Great Expectations_?  It’s only coming out in pamphlets here.  Where on Earth did you get a full copy?”

            “To be honest,” Melchior admitted, “on the street.”

            Howard had given up trying to figure him out.

 

            He scanned the essays eagerly and then read them in earnest, going through each phrase once and then editing with glee.  The entire process took about thirty minutes, but Gabor never really minded sitting and waiting.  It wasn’t as if he had much else to do; as far as he knew, the boy had no other employment.

            The paper on innocence was particularly poignant, almost poetic.  Growing up was obviously something Melchior could write about with ease, and the report on the homeless children, though it was certainly a different approach than the Hugo piece, was just as effective. 

            Melchior had certainly met his match in this Jimmy Hugo.

            Finally, the review of the book, which was even sweeter to read because it would be in higher demand due to the book’s popularity, was something he hadn’t expected of Melchior.  Even in lighter work, the boy went for the darker pieces of literature.  This was a young man who preferred a good Macbeth to Romeo and Juliet’s sappy prose any day, yet here he was praising the description of Pip’s love and devotion to Estella, even past all hope.  It made Howard want to buy his wife some flowers, in an embarrassing way.

            “Gabor?” he said with a final flourish of his pen.  “I like the essays.  Let’s start yelling at each other and get something good out of them.”

            He heard no reply, and looking up he saw Melchior was asleep in the chair.  He would have barked something to make him wake up, but Melchior’s state of sleep hushed the shout in his throat.

            The almost jovial boy who’d entered his office had disappeared, and though his limbs remained still and tight with arms crossed, his face spoke volumes.  Eyebrows knit, eyes twitching, he looked as if he was simultaneously in great pain and trying to talk to someone extremely fast.

            “Melchior?” Howard asked fearfully as the boy whimpered.  “Melchior??” He actually got up and shook the boy awake, failing in the first few attempts until the boy’s eyes finally shot open, shocked and frightened. 

            “M-Mr. Howard?” he said.  The older man said nothing, sitting down again at his desk and shaking his head.  “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to—”

            “No, it’s not your fault, kid,” Howard said, lighting a cigar.  “Are you...okay?”

            Melchior put his fingers to his temples, not even bothering to answer.

            “I guess when I asked you to take a break over the past few weeks, it wasn’t that simple, was it?”

            “No,” Melchior admitted.

            Mr. Howard looked thoughtfully at the essays.  “I think I’ll make the changes myself, but I’ll keep all three,” he decided.  “You can go.  Mr. Andrews will give you your check on the way out.”

            “Thank you,” the boy said through gritted teeth before stopping at the doorway.  “Mr. Howard, I really am sorry.”

            Howard managed a smile.  “I’m just worried for you, Gabor.  Seeing that didn’t help my ulcer any.”        

            “I’m trying to…well, I’m trying.”

            “I know.  If you ever need to talk, my door is open.”

            Melchior gave a grateful nod and headed out of the office, knowing that that was the closest anyone would ever get to getting him to open up.

 

            Which, of course, was when Fiff flew into the office like a wild animal.

 

            “Mister Howard!  Mister Howard!” he yelled, tumbling over his coat and short legs.  “I got a new story for ya!”

            The secretary outside Howard’s office rolled his eyes and didn’t even attempt to stop the youth from flailing into the office.  Howard certainly didn’t mind: this was the second time he’d seen the young fellow, and he was happy for it.

            “Mr. Fiff!  Back with another story as promised!” he said affably, offering a hand to shake.  “Was Hugo satisfied with the layout of the article?”

            “More than satisfied, sir, he was!  He’s, um….” Fiff delayed, trying to remember the exact words Jimmy had told him.  “ He’s ‘very grateful for this new employment opportunity’ and, uh…. ‘looks forward to continuing his work with you in the future.’ ”

            “And I him.  Any chance of meeting this Hugo fellow?  Not that I don’t enjoy your company, dear boy,” he said with a smile. 

            “I’m afraid he stills wishes to prefer anonymous, sir.  Jimmy has his reasons, he has.  Surely a respectable gentleman like yourself can understand?”

            Chuckling at Fiff’s funny way of speech, Howard accepted the portfolio and cleared his throat.  “I’m afraid I have a budget meeting in a few minutes, young man.  Can you come back later today?  Perhaps this afternoon, after I’ve had a chance to read them?”

            “No problem wiv that, sir,” Fiff said with a mock salute, running out of the office at top speed until he literally ran right into Melchior.

            “Fiff?” he asked, winded by the sudden impact.  “W-why on Earth are you running so fast?”

            “Sorry, Melcor!” he said with a grin, disentangling himself.  “I didn’t see ya!  You was moving right slowly, is all.  How are you, ol’ Melc?”

            Melchior winced at this nickname, a little too reminiscent of his childhood one.  “Just fine,” he lied with a small smile.  “Yourself?”

            “Me?  I’m just wonderin’,” Fiff said, grabbing the boy’s hand and leading him out the door.  “You say you’re fine, but you sure don’t seem it.”

            “Why do you say that?”

            Fiff didn’t want to go into the whole “kicked-animal’s-eyes” thing, so he simply changed the subject.  “Where are you headed?”

            “Erm, it’s around noon,” Melchior said, stepping out of the building, and surprisingly not allowing himself to be bothered by holding hands with Fiff.  As a rule, Melchior wasn’t a hand-holder.  Especially with children.

            Yet here he was.  Maybe this was a sign.  “I was going to get some lunch.”  He stopped in his tracks and looked down, a little nervous, before asking: “Would you like to come with me?”

            “What, to watch?” Fiff countered, eyebrows raised.

            He laughed out loud.  “No, to eat as well!  Why would I ask you to watch me eat?”

            “Eh, weirder things have happened,” Fiff said absently, swinging Melchior’s hand.  Suddenly, he got very excited.  “We’re going to eat?  We’re going to a fancy place to eat?”

            “No place too fancy,” Melchior said.  “I’m not terribly rich.  In fact, I’m rather on the destitute side.”

            The utter nonchalance with which he said this surprised him, especially faced with someone obviously much worse off than him.  He might live from paycheck to paycheck in his little garret, but he had clothes and small comforts.  Fiff was homeless.

            Shaking this out of his head and filling it inside with this newer joy, he tugged Fiff along the sidewalk to the bank, where he was able to cash his ten-dollar check.  Fiff watched in awe at the grand majesty of the bank, with its sloping ceilings and grand architecture.  He’d never seen anything like it.

           

            “Cor, I’ve never eaten so much in my whole life!” Fiff breathed, resting his hands on his skinny stomach. 

            Melchior glanced at his plate.  He’d picked the best restaurant within his price range, which by a regular citizen’s standards, might be considered a little shabby but at least an honest place.  Fiff had only eaten half of his beef and salad, but he’d attacked his plate with a ravenous fervor.       

            He, himself, was forcing himself to eat.  He was more of a light eater, even as a boy, but part of his plan to improve his health involved a strict meal schedule. 

            He pointed out the obvious: “You haven’t eaten half of your food.  Aren’t you hungry?”

            “I’m right full now, Melcor,” Fiff said with a sweet grin, leaning back in his chair.

            “So, what have you been up to?” he asked, making conversation. 

            “Oh, the usual stuff,” Fiff answered, launching into a rambling speech: “I travel around the city a lot.  There’s a lot of pretty buildings to look at, there are.  Lots of tall ones, old ones, new ones.  And the fall colors are pretty, too!  I used to keep a lot of leaves with me, but they all dried and crackled up.  Made my coat right itchy.  Jimmy comes to see me about twice a week, and I usually just walk around.  There’s lots to see ‘round here.”

            “You walk?  Where do you sleep?  Where do you stay?”

            “Lots of places,” the boy replied with a shrug.  “Our alley, mostly.  That’s where my babies are, and I take care of ‘em.  When I’m lost, usually a doorway is open, or at least warm.  Sometimes a park.  I like them parks: they’re always pretty and green, even in the winter.”

            “Don’t you freeze?” Melchior asked, eyes wide.

            “I haven’t yet, ol’ Melc,” Fiff said with an easy grin.  It was remarkable how often that boy answered with a grin and a shrug.

            “Don’t call me that,” Melchior said involuntarily, frowning when Fiff’s face fell.  “Sorry.  It just reminds me of something someone calls—called me.”

            “What did they call you?” Fiff asked.

            Melchior took a deep breath, almost afraid that saying the nickname aloud would summon some phantoms from the past.  _That’s ridiculous_ , he thought.  _It’s all in your head, in your nightmares_.

            “Melchi,” he finally said.  “They called me Melchi.”

            “Mel-kee?” Fiff brightened.  “That’s a right nice nickname.  May I call you that?  It’s better than Melc, after all.”

            He desperately wanted to say no, and his face probably showed it.  At the very least, Fiff could tell something was wrong.  “Do you want to talk about it?” Fiff inquired in a very grown-up voice, reaching across the table for Melchior’s hand.

            “Not really.”

            “But you’re sick!” Fiff argued.  “You should tell me what’s wrong.  I promised to make things better for you, and I can’t help ya if I don’t know what’s wrong.  Besides, whatever it is, it’s in here!” He pointed to Melchior’s heart, which earned him a groan. 

            “Would you really like to hear about it?” Melchior asked.  The honest truth was, his heart was crying for him to relate it all: the entire sordid history, just to have it off his shoulders if even for a moment.  But it was one of his aims in life to keep it bottled up, as he rightly deserved.

            If you’d killed two people, didn’t you deserve to carry that guilt with you? 

            His weakness won, and Melchior decided to tell a little.  He’d have to shave off the scarier details, for Fiff’s age, but sitting before him was the only person he’d cared to share lunch with in five years, the only child he’d associated with in five years, and the only person in his entire life who’d realized something was wrong.

            “When I was around your age,” he began wearily.  “Well, I was fourteen, but when I was younger, I had two very special friends.  They were very important to me.  I told them everything, and they told me everything.  I loved them both dearly.  And then, I did some very wrong things.

            “For starters, one friend was very sick.  You would have liked him, though, Fiff.  He was sweet, but his mind hurt him a lot.  I thought I could help him, but I made things worse for him.  He—he died,” he choked out, staring madly at his water glass. 

            A pensive Fiff urged him to go on.

            “I had another friend, a girl.  She was so beautiful.  She was a princess, Fiff, she was everything.  She filled my dreams, she still does.  I was…in love with her, I think.  No, I know.  I was in love with her, and I wanted to show her how much.  But I made a mistake, and I did something wrong, too.  She died, and they both left me behind.”

            “And that…that is why you are sick?”

            “Yes,” he confirmed.  “I am sick, because I hurt two people I loved.  And I feel bad in here,” he pointed to his heart, and then to his head, “which is why I am sad.  It happened five years ago, but I do not know how to be happy.”

            It was the simplest way he could put it, but he wished Fiff were a few years older, so he could tell the story in its entirety and get real advice.  “I get bad dreams, and I feel very guilty, so I feel sad and sick all the time.”

            “I understand,” Fiff said sadly, walking over and wrapping his arms around Melchior’s waist.  “I do.”

            Melchior had no idea what to do.  He was sure, moments ago, that he was going to burst into tears at this confession.  But he couldn’t.  He didn’t feel any better, or any worse, until Fiff gave him a tight hug.  He patted his arm awkwardly, somewhat unwilling to hug him, or anyone.  But Fiff did not withdraw.

            “I will fix this for you, Melchi,” he said, and Melchior did not recoil at the old nickname.  It sounded right, somehow.  “We just need to make you not lonely anymore.”

            Melchior sniffed and pulled Fiff’s arms off.  “Finish your food.  We need to leave soon.”

            Fiff got back to his plate and began wrapping his leftovers in a napkin. 

            “Fiff?” Melchior groaned.  “What are you doing?”

            “Bringing it home wiv me?”

            “What for?”

            Fiff looked at him squarely: “For my babies.”

            Melchior was immediately reminded of the suffering of this child and his gang back in the slums.  “Oh…oh, Fiff.  You really are too good.”

            “I’m allowed to bring it home, then, Melchi?”

            “Yes.  Come on, let’s get a move on.”

            They exited the restaurant together, Fiff gripping Melchior’s hand tightly before giving him a final hug and darting down the streets for home.

 

            The day was chillier than usual for autumn, but Gemma was glad to get out.  She’d delivered the story to Fiff yesterday, but she had no idea if her new article had been accepted or not.  With Fiff as her only eyes and ears, it was imperative she met with him as often as possible.

            She’d promised to meet with him at the Red Fish, which would be a usual long trek, but at least she’d gotten clearance to leave the house two days in a row.  _I wonder how long the poorhouse excuse will work on Wilhelmina_ , she thought to herself, slipping on the new clothes Patrick had been kind enough to lend her.

            “Whatever does little Gemkat need a man’s clothes for?” he’d asked.  Gemma had been too busy pulling her sleeves over the faint stains of ink still left on her arms.

            Thankfully, her face had washed successfully if not for a few inky smudges on her temple and cheekbones, but her arms and neck were still streaky.  The clothes were completely ruined, though, and too messy to wear and remain inconspicuous. 

            “Patrick, please?  I don’t really have an explanation for you.”

            “Having Harry over?” he suggested, eyebrows waggling like a villain’s.  The bawdy suggestion made Gemma blush furiously.  “Can’t find his clothes after your little romps?  You intend to sneak out to meet him?”

            “Patrick!  Stop!” she insisted, reddening further.  “Alice would never forgive you if she heard you.”

            “Alice would giggle at it like a schoolgirl.  I’ll lend you the clothes, little Gemmy, but you’d better not be messing with any boys.  You’re only 17, and unmarried.”

            In any case, she’d gotten the clothes, and her trips to the slums could continue.  Her mother was oblivious, and she got to escape her dreary life for a few more times before something dreadful happened.  Everyone was talking about her and Harry.  It was the talk of the elite.

            Frowning at the thought of this gossip, Gemma thought of Pip, the darling protagonist of _Great Expectations_.  This made her grimace further when she was reminded that her only copy of her favorite book had been lost on that horribly embarrassing day, but Christmas was in a few months.  Perhaps her parents could be persuaded to buy her a new copy instead of the usual ribbons and gowns.

            “I’m disgusting,” she hissed at herself as she pinned up her hair.  “Here I am, youngest daughter of one of the richest families in New York City.  I’m not hungry or cold, I have two parents, and I will always be well cared for.  It is unforgivable of me to feel—”

            She bit her lip before she could say unhappy, or depressed, or desperate.  She had everything, and she had made a way for herself to let all of New York know about those who had nothing.  She was not allowed to feel trapped, or ignored, or even the tiniest bit sad.  It wasn’t fair.

            Besides, she had Fiff and her stories, and Fiff brought her joy and made her feel needed.  Her stories allowed for her secret passion to actually mean something.  In a way, she really did have everything.

            Resolving to ignore this pity party, she stepped outside the servants’ quarters and into the wide world.  “No more poor little rich girl,” she snapped at her reflection as she left. 

            Walking swiftly outside the gate, she was so focused on her job and mission that she didn’t notice the shadow behind her, and could only give a little yelp of shock when a hand closed over her mouth and pulled her into darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

“ _MELCHI!  MELCHI!_ ” he heard a screeching voice scream across the street.  “ _MELCHI, PLEASE!”_

For one moment, Melchior was terrified that his psychosis had invaded his every day life: a common nightmare of a screeching Wendla on the operating table brought into his senses during the daytime.  He closed his eyes to will away the terrible cries, but on opening them and wheeling around, he saw a desperate Fiff running through the street to him, dodging horses and cars.

            “Melchi!” he cried one final time, throwing himself at the older boy.  “I’ve been lookin’ everywhere for ya!”

            “What—how—Fiff, are you hurt?” he asked in a daze, letting the urchin paw at him and cry into his dark coat.

            “No, no, I’m fine!” he reassured him, but the tears did not stop, making tracks down his dusty face.  “I didn’t know where you lived and I needed your help.  You’re the only person who can help me, Melcor!”

            “What do you mean?  Fiff, tell me what happened!” he demanded, pulling the boy off him and shaking him slightly.  He wasn’t sure if he could fend off an adult after the boy, or an agency. 

            Fiff hiccupped.  “I was supposed to meet Jimmy at the Red Fish pub a week ago, but Jimmy never showed up!  The same thing happened the second time that week we were supposed to meet, and then the week after!  Jimmy’s been missing at all three meetings, and something terrible has probably happened, and you need to help me!”

            “Are you sure he didn’t just skip?  Or forget about it?  Maybe something important was going on,” Melchior reasoned as the boy let some more errant tears slipped down his grimy face.

            “No, sir, Jimmy never skips a meeting.  Never, never.  Somethin’ is wrong.  I didn’t even get a note or a message or nuffin’, Melchi.”

            “All right, then,” Melchior said, straightening.  “What am I supposed to do?”

            Fiff straightened up as well, rubbing his eyes.  “Jimmy left me an address to go to if I ever was in serious trouble, but I can’t—I can’t read it.  I need ya to read it and help me find the address.  If somethin’ bad happened, I need to know so I can help.”

            Melchior was seriously doubtful that an eleven-year-old street orphan could offer any real assistance to a grown man, but Fiff was very torn up about this disappearance.  “Let’s go,” he said.  “Do you have the address on you?”

            “No, I left it at home,” he explained, tugging Melchior by the arm to his part of town.  “I just wanted to find ya first!”

 Melchior looked regretfully back at the New York Times office, which he had been about to enter prior to Fiff’s plea for help.  _Howard will understand_ , he told himself.  _Especially if his precious Hugo is involved.  I’m doing him a favor, really._

            Fiff led him by the hand all the way through town, taking about an hour to get to his neighborhood.  Still holding back visible fear and further tears, Melchior did his best to comfort him.

            “I’m sure it’s fine,” he cooed (shaking his head at the fact that he had ‘cooed’ anything to anyone).

            “I hope it is, Melchi,” Fiff said, eyes wide.  “You don’t know what a mess Jimmy could be in.”

            “Why he remains anonymous?  Someone might have found him out?”

            “Something like that.  It would be pretty bad if Wilhelmina found out.  Or Mr. Keeper!” he gasped, pulling even harder on Melchior’s sleeve. 

            “You know I don’t know what you mean,” Melchior said feebly.

            Fiff’s part of town was almost exactly as Melchior had imagined it.  Lined with moaning beggars in the frigid autumn, streets full of sludge and trash, not a speck of clean space to be seen.  Almost protectively, he shed his coat and put it over Fiff’s shoulders, as the boy had neglected to put on his usual huge overcoat. 

            “We’re here,” Fiff said, dragging him into a dark, tiny alley between two dark looking establishments without signs.  About fifteen steps inward, Melchior noticed thin drapings between the two buildings to create a sort of roof.  He tripped over crates and boxes that Fiff deftly avoided and finally got to the back of the alley, where a large rug was suspended by ropes over a collection of boxes and threadbare blankets.

            “This—is where—you live?” Melchior asked with sympathy breaking his speech.  Fiff ignored this and frantically overturned boxes until he triumphantly found a little slip of paper.

            “This is it!” he said, handing it to Melchior.  “Can you read it?”

            “I can, but it’s too dark here,” the older boy answered.  “Let’s move back outside.”

            Leaving his overcoat behind and opting to keep on Melchior’s coat, Fiff followed Melchior out of the alley. 

            “You really live there?” he asked once more, turning to Fiff almost accusingly.  “Fiff, that place isn’t fit for…for a mouse!”

            “It’s where I live with my babies.   Metty and Dreenie stay with me most days, and Coffy and Toby are older, so they moves around a lot.”

            “Has your Jimmy ever seen it?”

            “Nope.”

            Melchior felt a secret moment of triumph over Jimmy Hugo, a man he’d never met: he’d seen Fiff’s true home where the famous Hugo had never been invited.  “The address is on 5th Avenue,” he said incredulously.  “Fiff, your Jimmy lives on Millionaire’s Row!”

            Fiff’s grim and determined expression betrayed nothing.  “Is it far away?”

            “Far?  Far isn’t the question here, it’s how!  It’s what!  As in, how do you know a millionaire and what is wrong with him that he writes for the New York Times but is a recluse?  Also, how as in how is it that you’re not surprised by this address?”

            “I don’t expect you to understand, Melchi,” Fiff pleaded, “but Jimmy’s my friend and I need to help.  Somethin’s wrong, I just know it!”

            “So, let me get this straight: you are friends with one of the richest men in the city and intend to help them by barging into their house on 5th Avenue?”

            Fiff chose his next words carefully; he couldn’t do anything without that address, and so Melchior had to be affected by his next words.  “If you could have helped one of your friends….before they died…if you even had the slightest idea…wouldn’t ya do anything?”

            Melchior’s mind was swept up in a whirl of could-have-beens.  _If I’d known that Moritz had that gun…if I’d known that he’d been kicked out of school, and that his father had refused him, too…what wouldn’t I have done?_

The possibility of knowing and running to him, knocking the gun out of his hand and offering him life, shook Melchior and did nothing to help the guilt that constantly nagged at the back of his mind.

            “Let’s go,” he said, lifting Fiff onto his back. 

            “You’re givin’ me a piggy-back ride?” the boy asked excitedly.

            “Well, it’s on the other side of town,” Melchior explained, not exactly sure why he’d decided to give the little urchin a ride, but not exactly minding.  “We have a long way to go.”

 

            According to Melchior, what followed just showed how terrible an idea it really was.

            It had taken them two hours to get there, and Melchior didn’t take a single break from carrying Fiff on his back---and he wasn’t exactly the greatest specimen of human male athleticism.  Two hours of walking, cold autumn winds, and about 60 pounds deadweight on a 19-year-old boy’s back was never a good idea unless things were life or death.     

            But a lot of it had to do with Melchior’s pride: Fiff offered to walk on his own, but Melchior had refused each time.  But this didn’t stop him from complaining about the physical struggle.

            “I think we’re here!” Fiff said quietly from behind him, but he didn’t stop: Fiff had said this about the past ten houses he’d walked by.

            “It’s three houses up,” he revealed, continuing to take his long, measured strides.  “What do you expect to do, exactly, when you get there?”

            “I hadn’t thought that far,” Fiff admitted.  “I thought we’d see some pirates or somethin’ and I’d know what to do.”

            Melchior rolled his eyes as they arrived, lowering Fiff onto the sidewalk and bending over in fatigue.  “So what do we do now?  Jimmy is inside, I’m guessing, and you want to walk in and check on him.”

            “Well…not exactly,” Fiff said sadly, staring up at Melchior with the greatest pair of puppy-dog eyes he’d seen in his life.

            “What is it?”

            “I can’t go in there, Melchi.  Honest, I would if I could.  But look at me.  _Look_ at me, I’m a filthy mess.  I’m a little eleven-year-old scrap, and you—you look right decent.”

            Melchior knew what was coming.  “No.  NO.  No, Fiff, I’m not going to.  I helped you with everything else, but you have to go find him.”

            “Please!  PLEASE!  I can’t do it, they’ll kick me out, you’re exactly right!  You’re the only one they might let in to see her!”

            “ _Her_?!” he said, catching the key word. 

            Fiff shuffled uncomfortably.  “Jimmy’s…well, if you’re gonna to be the one to see her, then you’ll need to know…well, Jimmy’s just a pin name.”

            “A _pen_ name?” Melchior corrected, aghast.  “Jimmy’s a pen name?  Because Jimmy is a she?”

            “Her name is Gemma.  Gemma Keeper.”

            Melchior’s eyes went wide, and Fiff was quite sure that he was about to faint.  Closing his eyes with a gulp, Melchior gave Fiff one terse nod and opened the giant iron gates.

           

            _This is ridiculous_ , he screamed at himself internally as he walked up the neat little steps.  This internal scolding didn’t let up even as he reluctantly knocked on the large oak door with the heavy brass knocker, and it continued as a young maid opened the door for him and let him in the house.

            “Do you have your calling card?” she asked skittishly, making a small curtsy.       

            “Er, no, I’m…I’m here to see Miss Keeper…” he said as seriously as he could.  _You’re an idiot_ , he railed in his head.

            “We have two Miss Keepers at this home,” the maid said suspiciously.  “Are you referring to Miss Mary or Miss Gemma?”

            “Miss Gemma,” he revised.  “It’s urgent.”

            The maid’s eyes looked him over, surely taking in the shabbier clothes.  He didn’t have the refined silks and satins of this house, but at the very least he didn’t look badly.  “Shall I tell her who is calling?”

            _What are you going to say now, oh suave and smooth Melchior?_ the inner voice snarled.  “If you could, tell her…a Mr. Fiff has a message for her.”

            The maid’s face couldn’t have gone any whiter, but she dutifully led him to a well-furnished sitting room.  “She’ll see you here.”

            Melchior thanked her with a nod and surveyed the room.  The finery of the room made it impossible for him to sit down without worrying about breaking or smudging, so Melchior opted to stand, choosing to walk over to the bookcase and look for familiar titles to block out the _fool_ ’sand _you should go back outside and tell Fiff that she’s fine_ ’s.

            Something about the bookcase tugged at his memory, making him feel uncomfortable.  The leather spines and gold letters seemed too familiar, but he wasn’t sure where he had seen them before: after all, he didn’t have the kind of money to buy a bookcase of handsome classics like these.

            He was nearing upon what he thought was the answer as a bustle of skirts flew across the floor.  He turned to explain himself and began talking as she did:

            “Miss, I’m sorry if this confuses you, but I was sent to--”

            “Fiff, I’m so sorry, and I can explain everything--”

           

            Both stopped as they faced each other.

            “You,” he said with a little edge of surprise to his voice that matched the bemused look on his face.

            “You,” she replied, looking at him in utter shock.

            _Now, see what you’ve gotten yourself into this time!_ smirked the voice at the back of Melchior’s head.  _Told you this was a bad idea._


	9. Chapter 9

“I don’t believe this,” Melchior breathed, still frozen by the bookcase across the room.

            Gemma rolled her eyes quickly and drummed her fingers on the piano nearby.  “I don’t really either, but I need to know: where’s Fiff?”

            “He’s just outside, he—he thought it best I come in and find you instead.  He hadn’t heard from you, and he was worried.”

            “So he enlisted your help?” she said impatiently, almost whining.

            Melchior nodded fervently, staring openly at Gemma.  “We know each other, we’re—friends.”

            “And he’s okay?  He was just worried?” Gemma said, wincing slightly under his gaze.  “Stop staring at me.”

            “I beg your pardon,” he continued, “but I just—you’re the—you’re Jimmy Hugo!  All this time I thought—”

            “Shhh!” she cried, tumbling over her long skirts to throw a hand over Melchior’s mouth.  “You mustn’t say those things out loud!  If my mother found out, you’ve no idea what would happen to me!”

            “No wonder you were wearing those old clothes and hat weeks ago!  The anonymous Jimmy Hugo’s really a girl!” Melchior mumbled audibly under Gemma’s palm.  “Not just any little girl, but the fantastically rich Gemma Keeper!”

            “I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” she fumed, drawing her hand away.  “However, I must ask you to be quiet and not mention it to anyone else.  It doesn’t matter who writes the story, authors use pen names all the time.”

            Melchior couldn’t help but stare with disbelief: this girl, now before him in a green velvet gown had been covered in paper and ink in a New York slum.  In fact, he wouldn’t have recognized the girl were it not for her grey eyes; they’d been the only feature he’d been able to catch a glimpse of under her cap. 

            “And may I know who Fiff’s new friend is?” she asked.

            “Who?”

            “You, of course!”

            “Oh, I’m…” Melchior trailed off, remembering at once what had been nagging at him.  “Miss Keeper, I think I have your book!”

            Gemma sat down, exasperated.  “You didn’t answer my question.”

            “My name?  It’s Melchior,” he said, as if this was the least important thing in the world.  “You left your book behind, and I dried it off and brought it home.  I have it with me now!”

            Melchior’s hand dove into his coat packet, searching for it, while Gemma tried to make sense of his name.  “MEL-keeor?” she asked, emphasizing the “mel”.  “That sounds foreign.  Is it German?  Oh!” she gasped, and realization washed over her as Melchior found the book.

            “I believe you’re missing this,” he said with a smile, handing it to her.  She looked off into space, not accepting the book, and caused Melchior to frown.  “Is something wrong with it?  I tried to dry it, but it was very soaked, and--”

            “You’re ‘Melcor’?  Fiff’s writer friend?” she asked, as shocked as Melchior had been on meeting her.  “You wrote…the review on Faust?”

            “It wasn’t published.”

            “No, he gave it to me after you left it with him,” she explained, pushing past him to reach for a familiar portfolio behind the bookcase.  “In here?”

            Melchior ruffled his hair, blinking rapidly.  “This is a terrible introduction.”

            She stared at him blankly, as on edge as she’d been when she entered the room, and then dissolved into a weak laugh.  “This is a terrible introduction, indeed.  I was just hoping to placate Fiff when he got here, and I wasn’t expecting anyone else.  Especially you, Fiff’s writing friend who I met on the street without so much as a thank you.”

            “Well, I walked over here thinking I was going to rescue a man kidnapped by loan sharks or something of the sort, and I meet a little girl who pretends to be a big writer and goes on secret writing adventures.”

            Gemma’s apologetic expression turned angry.  “Let’s clear up a few things, my dear Mr.—er…”

            “Gabor.”

            “My dear Mr. Gabor: I am not a little girl.  I have finished my education and am a grown woman of seventeen, and I will be addressed with such respect.  Also, I do not go on secret adventures,” she seethed. 

            “Well, then where have you been when Fiff was worrying about you?”

            “I—”

            “Gemma, dear, did you find the Chopin piece you were going to play for us?” a jovial voice called from the hall, causing both to freeze in place. 

            A young man in his early twenties, with unruly dark hair and a smartly pressed suit, entered the room with a laugh.  “There you are, Gem,” he said, “and who is this?”

            “Melchior Gabor,” the younger man said, offering a hand.  “I was just returning a book to Miss Keeper.”

            “A book?  Do you run a little library for your friends, Gemma?” asked the man.

            “Harry,” she said demurely, “it was an accident.  I just left it outside one day and forgot about it.”

            “Why did you bring the book outside in the first place?” Harry pressed, unaware of the gravity of what he could imply.

            Gemma remained rooted to the spot, standing ramrod straight but turning her head slightly to plead with Melchior to say something.

            “Miss Keeper,” Melchior said easily, “often goes to charities and shelters through the city, and brings goods for the less fortunate.  Unfortunately, her book got mixed up with the books for the poor, and I was lucky enough to find it and bring it back.”

            “You know how I love Dickens, Harry,” she added.

            “Indeed, how can I not know when you pick up an _Oliver Twist_ when I come to visit you?” he joked.  Everything about the man was boisterous energy, and each remark came out as a joke with him.  “Were you finishing up with this Gabor gentleman?  Your mother is waiting for you.”

            “Oh, yes, I was just about to leave,” Melchior said with a slight bow.  “Let me just…give the lady my address should she…ever need…anything.”

            Gemma moaned inaudibly at that, but Harry just thought it manners.

            “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gabor,” he said amiably, leading Gemma away by the elbow. 

            “Pleasure’s been mine,” Melchior answered as he scribbled inside the cover of the book with a pen unearthed from his pocket.  He didn’t bother to ask for the man’s name in return, but he slapped the cover down and left the book on the piano.  Gemma gave him a little apologetic look as she was led away, and Melchior left the house without another word.

           

            “Was she okay?” Fiff asked, bouncing up and down.  “Was she hurt?  Did Wilhelmina find out?  Did they kick you out?”

            “She was fine, Fiff,” Melchior reassured him, closing the gate to the house.  “I only had a moment with her, but she’s fine.  She’ll be meeting us later with any luck.”

            Fiff breathed a sigh of relief.  Melchior hummed a little in frustration: he’d literally only had a moment with her, and he had so many questions to ask. 

           

            “I’ll be right back, Harry,” she promised with an imperceptible grimace, turning back delicately and gathering the book from the piano into her arms.  With a quick peek at the inside cover, she relaxed a little.

           

            _Miss Keeper:_

_Central Park, Angel of the Waters fountain at midnight, if you can.  Fiff and I will be waiting._

_M.G._

This new boy was certainly an interesting development.

 

            “Melcor,” Fiff said as they walked back to the New York Times office, “what are we doing?”

            “I have a meeting with Mr. Howard, remember?”

            “Yeah, but we have a meetin’ with Jimmy!”

            “At midnight in the middle of Central Park,” Melchior reasoned, entering the building with a wave.

            “You can’t leave me with that!”

            “It’s literally this simple: Miss Keeper is all right, and she’s got quite a bit of explaining and catching up to do.  She’ll meet us tonight in the park.  Can you meet me here at ten tonight?”

            Fiff nodded a little insanely, still relieved that she wasn’t hurt or kidnapped or beset by pirates.  “Hey, Melchi?”

            “Yes?”

            Fiff paused before asking what he really wanted to ask.  “Gemma…was she pretty?  Not in her coat and hat, I mean, but in her dresses and jewelry?”

            “You want to know if your friend looked ‘pretty’?” Melchior inquired with a little smile at Fiff’s baby crush on the girl.

            “Yes.”

            Melchior considered this, making the impatient little boy grumble a little.  He looked at the sky, scratched his head, stroked his imaginary beard, and clicked his tongue in mock thought.

            “Melchi!”

            “Yes, Miss Keeper was very pretty.  I’m sure she would have liked to see you.”

 

            Wilhelmina lauded Harry with praise and goodbyes, and John Keeper, Sr., left him with enough handshakes to make anyone sore, but Gemma had gone missing by dessert without so much as a farewell.

            Annie, the young maid, found her inexplicably in the kitchen, silently crying while she washed dishes.

            “Miss!  What are you doing?  That’s our work, not yours,” Annie scolded, roughly taking a dish and rag from her.  Gemma just grabbed a dry rag and dried the dishes.

            “I needed to get away,” Gemma explained with a hiccup of fresh tears.  “You’ll remember how I explained it to you?”

            Annie nodded, not wanting to feel an ounce of sympathy but knowing that she pitied the girl. 

            “Thank you,” sniffed Gemma, “for not telling my family.”

            “It’s not my place, miss.  If you want to gallivant all over New York City with poor people, it’s no skin off my nose.”

            “Then why did you stop me a few weeks ago?”       

            Annie recalled it: Gemma had been dressed in men’s clothes when she’d been out peeling potatoes, and she’d dragged Gemma back inside and demanded an explanation.  “You didn’t know what you were doing.  You needed to be a little more discreet if you were to keep going out, miss.”

            “I’ll work on that,” Gemma said tartly, wiping away tears.  “I’m to go tonight.”

            “And meet that gentleman?  Sounds perfectly safe.”

            “I need some answers, and I think he needs them, too.  At the very least, I need to find Fiff and make sure he’s all right.”

            Annie dried the last dish for Gemma and offered a tight smile.  “I’ll cover for you, but if that fellow kidnaps you and holds you for ransom and blackmails you to oblivion, don’t come crying to me.”


	10. Chapter 10

Melchior felt, though he was not participating in anything illegal, that he should dress with stealth in mind. 

            So, after an unsuccessful attempt at a nap and some organization in his apartment, Melchior carefully put on a black button down with his already black slacks and shoes.  “Great,” he groaned.  “I look ready to rob a bank.”

            Unsure of anything to bring, as he had never had a clandestine meeting at midnight in the middle of Central Park with a mysterious writer, he slipped a notebook, pencil, and kitchen knife into his coat pocket.  He wasn’t sure if any shady characters would be lurking around, and he wanted to be able to protect himself in a bad situation. 

            Who was he kidding?  _He_ was a shady character.

            New York City at night, even in the beginning of the electric age, was breathtaking by anyone’s standards.  The old buildings looked tired and sleepy in the lamplight, with far-off windows lit up like stars and the new buildings shiny with their glass and steel.  A true hodge-podge of style that Fiff would appreciate; the little boy certainly had the attention to detail to be quite the architect.

            Speaking of Fiff, the urchin met him without fail in front of the New York Times office, kicking a pebble around with his foot.  Melchior grinned at the sight of him.  “Are you ready to go?” he asked softly.

            “I’ve been ready,” Fiff answered.  “I can’t wait any longer!”

            They silently walked to their destination, Fiff surprisingly not talking for most of the time.  Of course, as they neared the park, he got a little more anxious.

            “The one part of New York that’s really green, init?” he told Melchior, jumping at the leaves above.  “Well, orange and yellow now.”

            Melchior nodded, noticing the way the midnight light filtered through the trees.  Instead of relaxing at the obvious beauty, he just tensed: he should have requested a meeting at an earlier time. 

            When the reached the fountain, Fiff gasped with glee and scrambled over to it, immediately splashing the surface and soaking his hands in it.  “Melchi, the water!” he breathed.  “It feels wonderful.”

            Melchior sat down at waited, tuning out Fiff’s happy sounds and surveying the park around them.  It was quiet and peaceful but for the bubbling of the fountain, and no murderers seemed to be lurking about.

            Except him, of course.

            Mirror-blue night settled like a blanket, tinting everything an indigo shade.  The rustle of footsteps drew his attention, and Fiff didn’t even wait to identify the source.

            “Jimmy!” he cried happily, running into the stranger’s arms. 

            “Fiff, no!” Melchior said, springing to his feet.  “We don’t know who it is!”

 

            “It’s just me,” Gemma whispered from the path.  She could distinguish Fiff’s shape, running toward her, and the boy from before, on his feet, though she could see neither face.      

            “Jim!” Fiff breathed into her neck when she swept him up in a hug.  “I was so worried about ya!”

            “Fiff, is that Miss Keeper?” the boy—Melchior—called from the fountain ahead.

            “Yes,” she answered, stepping into the fountain’s clearing and into the threshold of moonlight.  “Hello, Mr. Gabor.  Thank you for organizing this meeting, I wasn’t sure when I’d get to see Fiff again.”

            “It wasn’t any trouble,” he said, a strange look on his face.  Fiff led her to the fountain, where he made her sit down and explain.          

            “I was going to meet you,” she promised.  “My maid, Annie, caught me on my way out, and she found out my secret.  I had to explain everything to her, and she wouldn’t let me leave on that first day.  She threatened to tell my parents, so I had to listen to her.

            “I tried to leave again, but she still wouldn’t let me leave until she could figure out a better way for me to get out.  My excuses weren’t going to hold out for long.  But we’ve worked it out now, and I let her know when I leave so she can cover for me.  I couldn’t be here without her.  In fact, I couldn’t go out anymore at all if it weren’t for her.”

            “So you’ll still write stories and see me?”

            “Of course,” she said, ruffling Fiff’s hair.  “Now, would you explain exactly how you know Mr. Gabor?”

            “I thought you’d ask,” Fiff smiled.  “When I gave Mr. Howard your first story, he was in the office and we got talkin’.  He wasn’t very nice at first,” he mock-whispered, “but he’s much better now.”

            “You said you’d make him better,” Gemma reminded him, glancing at Melchior.  His expression betrayed nothing, but in one glance, she couldn’t gather much of anything anyway.

            “We’re good friends, and he helped me find ya, so we’re all okay, ain’t we?” Fiff demanded.

            “Indeed we are,” Gemma said.  “In fact, Mr. Gabor and I have met before.”

            “COR!  When’d ya do that?”

            Both Melchior and Gemma laughed at that.  “She was out writing, in disguise,” explained Melchior.  “We both happened to be affected by a prank some children pulled.”

            “So we all know each other now?” Fiff said, running over to Melchior and hugging him this time. 

            The older boy looked at Gemma over Fiff’s shoulder, giving her a hard look.  She could see a thousand questions he wanted to ask.  “We do,” she agreed, taking Fiff back like a baby and rocking him.  “You should rest now.  It’s very late.”

            “I’m not tired!”

            “Of course you are,” she purred.  “It’s late and cold out.  You should sleep a little, we won’t leave you in the park.”

            She didn’t have to say anything further: Fiff was already snoring softly despite his earlier protests.  She set him down on the ledge of the fountain and stood up.

            “You want to talk, don’t you?” she asked, but it wasn’t really a question. 

            Melchior nodded without a word and slipped off his coat, putting it on her thin shoulders. 

            “What--”

            “It’s cold out, like you said,” he shrugged.  “We have a lot to discuss.”

            Gemma sat down on the ledge a few yards away from Fiff with a sigh, putting her arms through the coat.  “Thank you,” she said.  “What do you want to know?”

            “Well, everything, to be honest.”

            “Everything?”

            “Everything.”

            She huffed.  “My name is Gemma Katherine Keeper, I’m seventeen years old, I don’t like chocolate, I wanted to be a ballerina when I was small…”

            He didn’t laugh.  “I meant more of you history. Namely, why a Keeper living on 5th Avenue is anonymously writing for the Times.”

            “It’s a long story,” she said.  “Surely you want to get home?  Get some sleep?  Your mother will worry.”

            “My mother is no problem.”

            “Oh?  Your father, then?  Perhaps even your wife?”

            He laughed a little bitterly at that.  “I have no wife.  I’m only nineteen, and my family is in Germany.”

            Gemma gulped, wanting to ask further, but she had already showed enough impertinence.  She forgot her manners around him.

            “Long story, then,” she said as affably as possible.  “But you must promise, at the very beginning, at least, not to be angry with me.”

            “I’ll try,” he replied with a smirk.  “Though I hope it’s not so terrible.”

            “It isn’t.”  She took a deep breath, looking at the night sky.  “You already know I’m not in the same situation as the people I write about: I do live on 5th Avenue, and I am a Keeper.  We’re a rich family, to be sure.”

            She didn’t know exactly how to tell him everything, or if she really wanted to, but storytelling was her strongest suit, and it wasn’t often anyone really wanted to hear her opinions.

            “My father, John, is the head of a shipping industry.  He’s just wonderful: strict, but with a soft spot for his children.  He’s all about honest business and trade, a very Christian man.  My mother’s name is Wilhelmina, and you can’t call her anything else.  I always thought Wilhelmina was a long and horribly stuffy name, but her friends don’t call her Mina or Willa or even Minnie.  It’s always Wilhelmina, Mrs. Keeper, or Mother with her.  She won’t have it any other way, and she’s very strict.

            “I have two older sisters and a younger brother.  Alice is the eldest, and she got everything: she’s gorgeous, smart, and kind, and so very talented with her music.  She got married two years ago, to Patrick Madison.  He’s truly wonderful, and he loves her very much.  She is lucky in that, since I’m sure you know how upper class marriages go.”

            “No, I don’t,” Melchior said.

            “Don’t you?” she asked, flabbergasted.  “They’re almost always arranged by the parents, no matter how outdated arranged marriages are.  The rich marry the rich, and most marriages are very, very unhappy.  But Alice and Patrick are a rare exception.  Mary is the next sister, and she’s of age now.  Her coming out party is this December, and she’s beautiful, too.  Blonde, like my father, but she isn’t always as nice as him, or Alice for that matter.  I guess you could say she inherited Mother’s spitefulness.  John, or Jacky, is the baby of the family, and he’s your average boy.  Proud and boastful, but very sweet.”

            “You still haven’t answered my first question.  How did you get to write?”

            “I’m getting there!  All Keeper girls are sent to Cliffwood School for Girls, a private school for etiquette.  We all were required to go, and Alice and Marny had a marvelous time.  I didn’t, really.”

            “Which got you into writing?”

            Gemma groaned, leaning in as if telling a sordid secret.  “It was terrible there, Melchior—may I call you that?”

            “Yes.”

            “It was terrible: all deportment and teatime and walking with books on your head.  I wasn’t nearly as pretty or girly as the other girls, and they hated me for it.  So what could I do but turn to books?  I read everything, and I wrote little stories.  Becoming a journalist was something I always wanted to do.  I have a collection of my favorite newspaper articles at home,” she laughed.

            “So when I came home,” she continued, “I was 16 and I desperately wanted to write.  I was back in the same old life, and I knew what I could do, so I started my career.  It was only a month ago I got my work published for the first time.  I met Fiff on one of my trips, and he’s always stuck around.”

            “So, in summary, you were bored with your rich life, so you wrote about poor people?” he scoffed.

            “I knew you wouldn’t understand!  I told you not to be angry, it’s much deeper than that.  I have so much, and they have nothing, so the least I can do is bring attention to the fact that they’re in such serious trouble.”

            “So you do this out of guilt?”

            “No!”

            “It sounds like you do,” he said.  “But I’ll admit, you’re not admitting everything.  You’ve given me your facts.”

            “Isn’t that what you wanted?  Facts, an explanation?”

            “It might be, but I’ve read what you had to write.  You like your opinions and feelings more than facts.  By the way, that’s something that weakens your writing,” he added.

            Gemma wanted to talk about the writing, but Melchior had touched on a point that she wanted to address now.  “Opinions?  You want my feelings on this?”

            “I don’t _want_ them, but you have them.  So tell them.”

            “If you _really_ want to know,” she said, boiling with anger at these new suppositions, “I’ll tell you.  I’ll tell you all the dark stuff no one wants to know.  I’ll tell you how trapped and alone I felt, locked in a room with my nurse for company and no interaction with my parents when I was a baby.  I’ll tell you about being forced to sit up straight and smile and never speak since I could talk.  I’ll tell you all about it.”

            She stood up, facing him and raising her voice a hair when she saw how unaffected he was.  “My mother was a demon until I left for school.  I was only a child, and I didn’t act as perfectly as Alice had, or Marny.  I made too many mistakes in front of too many important people, and she’d constantly meet me in my room with those cold eyes and belittle me into behaving.  I was eleven when I left for school, and I was alone constantly.  There was no one in that dark, cold school, not a single person to talk to or be with.  My sister, Alice, was too kind to ever stand up to Mother, and she had her dreams crushed in the end because she chose to do what Mother wanted and married Patrick.  I came back from school, and still, there was no one: it was the same old fast track to a coming out party, and a marriage, and a complete loss of freedom.  I have no choice, I have no life, and by bringing some justice to those who needed it, I am able to get some happiness.  I am trapped, Mr. Gabor, and you saying that I do this out of guilt when I never asked for this life, never asked for the gold or the diamonds or the manners and—oh!”          

            She shrank back.  “I’ve said too much.  I never know when to be quiet.”

            Melchior’s stare never wavered, leaning back on his palms and looking her directly in the eye.  He didn’t say anything.

            For the first time, Gemma was able to see what he really looked like: very intimidating, to be sure.  He wasn’t very muscular or tall, but he had that well-balanced proportion and look, with the light hair she’d only seen drenched with street water curling and in need of a haircut.  His eyes seemed amused at her outburst, and he said quietly, “You might have said too much, but it wasn’t enough, was it?”

            She sat back down.  “No.  I could try and describe how I feel with thousands of words and millions of pages, but I’d never get it exactly right.  Suffice it to say I’m miserable, but doing this makes me happy.”

            “Fiff doesn’t know, does he?”

            “Only a very little bit.  But he’s very intuitive.”      

            “I know,” Melchior replied.

            They both sat in the silence, which wasn’t exactly awkward: Gemma admired the stars and the quiet stream of the fountain, relaxing in Melchior’s silent presence.  It was a peaceful moment, in a way.

            “What about you?” she said finally.  “Any issues you’d like to clear up?”

            He laughed.  “Too many to count.”

            “Care to share some?  I so graciously poured my heart out to you, I think it’s fair to return the favor.”

            “No.”

            Gemma looked at him with her best imitation of puppy dog eyes, which was virtually useless.  “At the very least, tell me a little about yourself.  We’re going to be seeing each other a lot more, I think, because of Fiff.”

            “That’s fair, I suppose,” Melchior sighed.  “I was born and raised in Germany.”

            “Fiff said you were German!  Tell me about it!”

            Melchior chuckled at her sudden enthusiasm, as the girl scooted closer with bright grey eyes, now all ears.  “That eager for a distraction, are you?”

            “I’ve never been out of the country before.  I’m sure Germany is marvelous.”

            “It certainly was different,” he said.  “Less buildings and noise.  There were lots of fields and trees and brooks, and all the houses were smaller and simpler.”

            “Like a fairy tale,” she breathed.  “Like the houses in Hansel and Gretel.  Or Snow White.”

            “Looks like someone’s read the Brothers Grimm one time too many.”

            “Oh, just keep talking!” she said as she blushed.  In the midnight, it just looked like her face turned a darker blue.

            “I lived there until I was 14, and I ran away from home.  It was stupid of me, and I wouldn’t have lived long were it not for a priest who found on the road at night.  He nursed me back to health, I guess you could say.  As soon as I could, I stowed away on a ship for America and I lived here, trying to get work and largely failing.”

            “So you’ve been in a situation like Fiff.  Homeless.”

            “Only briefly.  I was older and smarter, so I could get places to sleep and odd jobs as I picked up English.  I read at night to catch up, and here I am today, a writer for the Times like yourself.”

            “Indeed,” she said.  “Is that all you’re going to tell me, Mr. Gabor?”

            He looked into the fountain’s waters.  “Most definitely.”

            Gemma paused, watching him.  He suddenly looked uncomfortable, as if in a little bit of pain.  His entire face contorted into a slight grimace, and Gemma saw what she was looking for.

            “Are you all right?” she asked.

            “I was just thinking.”

            “About what?”

            No response.

            “The essays Fiff gave me,” she said, “were beautifully written.  You’ve certainly got a great command of the English language.”

            “I’ve written a lot better.  I’ll show you, one day.  I have stuff printed in the Times every week, nearly.”           

            “Any other secret projects?”

            “A few books, some longer things,” he revealed, thinking about something.  Then: “You’re a very good writer yourself.  Well, at least not a bad one.  You need to work on keeping your opinions in more, and giving more solid fact in your reports.”

            “Why, thank you,” she said tartly.  “I tell you your writing is beautiful, and you tell me that, at least, I’m not a bad writer.”

            “Don’t worry yourself too much about it: I’m not a man of great compliments.  And if we do ending meeting more often, I might even help you with your writing.  A Gabor and a Hugo piece wouldn’t hurt the readers of the Times, would it?”

            “I suppose not,” she conceded. 

            Melchior bit his lip before asking the next question.  “I’m sorry about your engagement to that Harry fellow.”

            Gemma whimpered almost inaudibly.  “How could you guess?  I didn’t say anything about it.”

            “Your brother’s name is John, and there really is no other reason you’d have a male guest over.  It wasn’t hard.  I’m very sorry to hear it, because as you’ve revealed, an arranged marriage isn’t something you are looking forward to.”

            “I don’t want to talk about it,” she moaned.

            “I’m sure you don’t.  It’s obvious that you don’t want to get married.  It’s an end to your limited freedom.”

            Gemma shrugged jerkily.  “It’s not set in stone yet.  There’s been no official proposal.  I can still change things.”

            “Of course you can,” Melchior said with a sarcastic edge.  She was obviously torn up about the entire thing, and to avoid waterworks, he moved onto an easier subject.

            “You’re not wearing a dress,” he said as easily as he could.

            She looked up with a raised eyebrow, taking off her hat.  “If I wore a velvet gown down to Central Park at midnight, I’d be kidnapped or killed or…worse…in an instant.”

            Melchior winced at that.  He hadn’t thought about the girl’s safety at all, and all the while he was worried for himself and for Fiff when an unchaperoned girl in New York City had far more to be scared of.

           

            Melchior kept his personal life a complete secret, but that was largely due to his lack of friends and social life.  The one and only girl he’d ever felt anything for was Wendla: she was the only girl he’d loved and only girl he’d been with, and he’d forbidden himself to be with anyone else following her death. 

            Even in his teenage years, when the hormones would have sent any normal boy into a frenzy, he’d conjure Wendla’s face into mind when he passed a pretty girl on the street, and they never compared.  Every winking waitress or lady strolling on the sidewalk reminded him of her, and those who didn’t look like her didn’t deserve his time.  Those, however, who looked like her even a little bit were dismissed as being too painful.

            Gemma was no exception to his comparison, so for a good minute in the mirror blue, Melchior allowed himself to really look at her.

            Wendla, with her tiny, curvy body and ruddy complexion of childhood was a glaring contrast to Gemma, who had had the chance to grow up.  Gemma wasn’t exactly skinny, but she was slight and taller than most girls, lacking many of the tantalizing curves Wendla had possessed at 14 and the flushed skin.  Wendla also had sported tiny dark curls and a sweet smile, where the few smiles he’d seen from Gemma were bright and a little mischievous, not in the least bit shy.  Her hair was right in the middle of everything: not curly but not completely straight, a tawny color, down the middle of her back.  Despite all this, the greatest difference was Gemma’s comically huge grey eyes, almost owl-like and nothing like Wendla’s soft brown ones.

            She looked at him as he looked at her, neither holding back as they’d never properly looked at each other before.  It didn’t seem awkward or improper: it was more like a real introduction.  The greatest surprise for Melchior was that he’d expected to either be repulsed by differences or similarities, but Gemma seemed to be just different enough from Wendla that he could be in her presence for extended periods of time without bursting into tears.

            This was the best part, since he knew he’d be seeing her more often unless he cut himself off from Fiff, and at this point, he couldn’t do that.  He cared about the little boy now, and that was a miracle in and of itself.

            _Two friends isn’t a bad thing_ , he told himself. _I used to have lots of them._

_Until you killed two of them, fool._

“Fiff was right,” she said softly.  “Your eyes.”

            “What about them?” he snapped.

            Gemma looked a little embarrassed.  “Fiff said that your eyes looked…um, a little pained.”

            “Pained? You’re saying my eyes look pained to you?”

            “No, not at all…well, yes, I guess I am,” she agreed.  “Not in a bad way.  They don’t detract from your appearance.  You’ve just…I guess what I’m trying to say is, Fiff could tell something bad had happened to you, and he could see it in your eyes.  I can see it too, a little.”

            “I think that’s a rather rude things to say to someone you’ve only known a day.”

            “I wasn’t going to ask what happened,” she tried to argue.  “I don’t even know why I said it.  Forget about it, because I seem to forget my manners completely around you.”

            “Well, you weren’t too polite with Harry, either.”

            “Melchi!” Fiff mumbled sleepily from a few yards away, yawning himself awake.  “Jimmy!  Did I fall asleep?”

            Gemma rushed to soothe him.  “Only for a little bit.  Are you ready to go home?”

            “Miss Keeper, I can take it from here,” Melchior said in a business-like tone.  “I can escort him home.  Will you be needing an escort, too?”

            “No,” she responded.  “It’s faster if I go alone.”  She put her hat back on and hugged Fiff.  “I’ll see you in a few days, at the Red Fish.  Be there?”

            “Of course!”

            Gemma straightened, going to shake Melchior’s hand.  “It’s been a pleasure, Melchior.  I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

            He returned the handshake.  “I’m sure, Miss Keeper.”

            The trio walked away from the fountain, staying together until they reached the exit.  “You know,” Gemma said, carrying the sleeping Fiff, “I think, if we’re going to be meeting with Fiff, you should call me Gemma.  It would make me feel strange, being called Miss Keeper all the time while Fiff calls me Jimmy.”

            “As you wish, Gemma,” he replied.  He’d never heard the name before meeting her, and it had a bell-like ring to it.  He decided he liked it.        

 

            Melchior had done many things in the past few weeks that surprised him: first, he’d taken action against his poor treatment of himself; second, he’d interacted with a person that wasn’t a figment of his imagination; and third, he’d befriended two people, one of which was a young girl.  All three things were things he thought he’d never be able to do after leaving Germany.  He was pretty much out of surprises for himself.

            Gemma plopped the sleepy Fiff into Melchior’s arms with an impish smile before slipping into the darkness like a shadow.

            “We goin’ home now?” Fiff mumbled sleepily, nestling further into the crook of Melchior’s neck.

            Melchior would have nodded and taken him back, feeling happy that he hadn’t let the poor little boy walk home half-asleep and leaving him off in the alley with a wave and a promise of meeting later.

            He would have, but that was wrong.  It seemed terribly wrong somehow, almost an insult to all the progress he’d made from the old Melchior.  Leaving Fiff in the alley was leaving him to die, and even if he managed to survive one cold night, Melchior had no idea how many nights an orphan could take in the streets.

            He was about to surprise himself again, he could feel it.  “Fiff,” he said, looking down on the sleeping boy, letting his heart warm.  The little boy certainly was precious and sweet; he’d never caused any trouble and only wanted to help Melchior.  He—loved Melchior, though he’d only known him for a few weeks.  It just showed how good a heart Fiff had, that he’d been willing to care for a shut-off, hopeless man when the past five years had isolated him from everyone. 

            Melchior would have been evil not to recognize this.  But what he was about to do could change everything.  Once done, it could not be undone; there would be no turning back.

            _Then let’s hope I won’t want to,_ he thought grimly, _because Fiff is coming to live with me, and I won’t let myself screw this up._

            “Fiff, “ he repeated.  “How’d you like to come with me for the night instead?”  
            “To sleep over?” he asked drowsily.

            “Yes.”

            “Of course!”


	11. Chapter 11

Fiff woke up and immediately assumed he had died.  After all, he never woke up warm in the middle of October.

            He wasn’t exactly sure what to do or say: he didn’t know if he was in heaven, where he’d heard you were supposed to go, and he didn’t remember anyone from his early childhood that he could call for.  Fiff figured the best thing to was to keep his eyes closed and snuggle under the warmth, and if someone was coming to fetch him to the clouds, they could wake him up.

            “Hey, sleepyhead,” a voice called from across the…space.  “This isn’t the Ritz, so no bacon and eggs for breakfast, but at least there’s something.”

            Fiff’s eyes flew open.  “Melchior!”

            Melchior sat across the room, waving a loaf of bread in hello.  Fiff looked down, and up, and everywhere.  He was in a tiny bed with a sheet over him, and the entire apartment, though small and a little dirty, was a palace to him.  It was perfect, it was Melchior: papers and books everywhere. 

            “What happened?”

            “I asked you if you wanted to sleep here instead of in your alley last night,” Melchior shrugged, tossing the bread over to Fiff.  “You said yes, so you’re going to be staying here.”

            “Here?”

            “If you want to stay, of course.  I won’t force you, but you are welcome to live with me from now on.”

            “If I wanna?  Melchi, I wanna!” he squealed, launching himself from the creaky metal bed and into Melchior’s arms.  This time, Melchior welcomed the hug.  “Melchi, we’ll be like brothers!”

            Melchior laughed, knowing for sure now that he’d made the best decision; in fact, it was probably the best decision he’d made in the past five years.  He’d ensured the safety of someone he cared about and finally had someone to care for.

            “Of course, you’re allowed to do what you want to during the day, as long as you don’t get into trouble.  But we can eat together and you’ll have a place to stay.”

            “You only have the one bed.”

            “Eh, I’m not a great sleeper.  You can have it.  We’ll need to get you some new clothes as soon as possible, but I’ll need time to get some more money.”

            “We can ask Jimmy!” Fiff insisted eagerly.

            Melchior shook his head vehemently.  “We are not asking Miss—we are not asking Gemma for money.  We don’t need charity, Fiff, I’ll get us everything we need.  We just live paycheck to paycheck here.  Feast or famine.”

            “I don’t care,” Fiff said, eyes bright.  “It’s like we’re a family now!”

            Melchior’s cocky grin disappeared at that.

            “What?  Aren’t we?” asked Fiff.

            “Well…I guess, since we have a relationship based on care for the other…”

            “Yes?”  
            “And you consider me a brother, sort of…”

            “Yes?”

            “And we’re living together, and I’ll be paying for your things now…”

            “Melchi!”  
            He ruffled his hair.  “I’m just kidding.  I suppose you could say we are a family.  Kind of.  I haven’t had a family for five years, so I’m just getting used to this.  You’ll have to give me time, Fiff.  I haven’t let myself be close to people.”

            “I really don’t care,” Fiff laughed.  “Now you have to be!  I can’t wait to tell Jimmy.”

            “There’s something you should know, though,” Melchior warned.  “Well, a lot of things, but I won’t tell them to you now.”

            Fiff was silent and sat at Melchior’s feet, ready to listen.

            “First, you can’t get into my stuff.  No reading or writing on my papers or books.”

            “You know I can’t read.”

            “Well, when I teach you, you’re not allowed.  Furthermore, I’m very sorry, but your babies in the alley can’t all fit in here, and I don’t know them.  You’re the only one who is allowed in here, do you understand?”

            Fiff nodded solemnly, feeling a little guilty at his shift in fortunes when his gang was left behind.

            “And finally…well, Fiff, you remember what I told you?  About my friends?”

            “Cor, I do.  What about ‘em?”

            Melchior sighed heavily before looking deep into the boy’s eyes.  “I have dreams about them a lot, and some of the dreams are scary.  Sometimes I react to them, and I wake people up.  If I wake you, you mustn’t be scared.  You must wake me up: I don’t mean to scare you, but I can’t help the nightmares.  You must promise me, now, not to be scared and to wake me.”

            Fiff didn’t even consider an alternative.  “I promise you.  Of course I would!”

            “Good,” Melchior said.  “I’m glad we’re all agreed.  Now, when are you meeting Gemma next?”

            “Whenever she sends for me, I guess.  She always gets me a message somehow, she does.”

 

            “I suppose you’ll be accompanying Fiff from now on, won’t you?” Gemma said as soon as the pair walked into the Red Fish.  She’d been waiting at a table near the back, but on seeing the little boy walk through the door, she’d jumped out of her chair, knocking it down when Melchior had entered the pub after him.

            “It’s nice to see you again, too,” smirked Melchior, herding Fiff over to the back table.  “And, as a matter of fact, I will be accompanying him on his trips to meet you.  When he has to go so far away from our house, I need to watch him.”

            Fiff rolled his eyes as he slid into a chair.  “I tried to tell him I’ve run across town all the time, Jimmy, but ever since I moved in he’s been all tense about me.  Cor, he’s almost acting like my dad.”

            Gemma missed the crucial part of what Fiff had said.  “Indeed,” she agreed, “I’m sure Melchior is more than a little tense about lots of things.”  She looked pointedly at him, but Melchior ignored the small slight.

            “Did you eat?” he asked.

            “Yes, at the house—Alice was over, and….” Realization dawned on Gemma’s face.  “Wait—moved _in_?!?”

            Fiff launched into an explanation, bouncing in his seat and tugging on Gemma’s long coat sleeve.  “It’s just wonderful, Jimmy!  Last week, after the fountain thing, which was right cold outside, if you don’t mind me sayin’, Melchi took me home and offered to let me stay with ‘im!”  
            “Oh, did he, now?” Gemma asked with an edge to her voice.

            “He gets me food and he’s teachin’ me how to read and he’ll teach me to write soon, he promised!  We’re getting along right well, it’s just that he gets all antsy whenever I leave the house.  Parental jitters, y’know?”  
            “I’m not your parent,” Melchior sighed.  “Look, I’m just letting him live with me.  That’s not a bad thing, is it?  A stable home for the kid you care about, Gemma?”

            “It’s not…it’s not that it’s a bad thing,” Gemma amended.  “It’s just that…well, I was going to be the one to offer him a home.”

            “Wilhelmina would’ve kicked me out without a second thought!” Fiff said.  “There’s really no one else I’d rather live with, and Melchior’s been awful nice about the whole thing.  I think he’s getting a lot better.  Why, in a week he could actually confess that he has feelings!”

            Gemma burst out laughing at this, even though Melchior didn’t find it particularly funny. 

            “What’s on the agenda today, _Miss_ Jimmy Hugo?” he growled.

            “Oh, go ahead and suck the fun out of the moment,” Gemma said, getting up to leave.  “I was going story-hunting today, and Fiff was going to come with me.  You’re welcome to come along, as long as you don’t slow us down.”

            “Slow you down?  Oh, come on, let’s go,” he grumbled, grabbing Fiff’s and Gemma’s hands and very nearly dragging them out of the pub.  On realizing he was holding Gemma’s hand, he promptly let go and lifted Fiff onto his back for a piggyback ride.

            “So, shall we split up and look for scandal?” Gemma suggested playfully, retrieving a pen and paper from her coat.  “I always look for the details in the town, and they usually lead me to sniff out something bigger.”

            “Oh, of course, writing down random details is how you find the $500 story.” Melchior couldn’t help but scoff.  It wasn’t lost on her.

            “I’m sorry, but I have a specific method to my journalism that has gotten me on the front page.  You’ll have to excuse me while I continue to use it,” she said, turning to walk down the sidewalk.  Melchior thought of a hundred comebacks, ignoring Fiff’s attempts to get him to go with her. 

            “Maybe you should just wait here an’ let me go with her,” Fiff suggested weakly, sliding off his back. 

            “Oh, no, there’s no way I’m letting you two roam the streets of New York alone.  I don’t care if it’s worked for you before, but the chances of you getting taken by ruffians are too high now.  I’m coming with you two from now on, if only to act as a bodyguard.  Besides,” he said, smiling slightly, “Gemma needs a little work on her journalism no matter what she says.  If she thinks sitting on a stool watching the carriages go by is going to get her another front page spread, she’s sorely mistaken.”

            With that, Melchior walked after Gemma, who was speeding down the street to the corner.  “Cor, there he goes with the fast walkin’ again!” grumbled Fiff, struggling to keep up.

           

            Gemma was determined to prove Melchior wrong, and for the next two hours, she took extensive notes of all her surroundings, from the actions of an alley cat to the bartering of fruit grocers.  These notes would have made any schoolteacher proud, but she realized with sinking dread that nothing she’d uncovered was particularly exciting.  True, her first story hadn’t been exciting, but the true condition of the homeless had been shocking and thought-provoking.  All she had now were three pages worth of cramped handwriting about a feline’s antics and apple bargains.

            Melchior read her mind, standing above her and looking at her notes.  He’d been standing there silently for the entire two hours, not really bothering her but making her nervous. 

            “Satisfied with your findings?” he asked innocently, almost enjoying himself.  Fiff had long gone to play with some rocks on the sidewalk’s curb, but he was still in earshot.

            Gemma resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him.  “I’m sure something will turn up soon.”

            Squatting down, Melchior surveyed her notes despite her attempts to hide them.  “The thing is, you’re not looking for anything.  The key to finding things to write about is to look for something that will shock people, and you’re not looking for it.”

            “How would you know what people look for?  You write reviews, defenses, and essays; what would you know about real news?”

            “I’m freelance.  It’s different.  Now look,” he instructed, pointing to the corner of the next street.  “See that man in the large overcoat?  He keeps looking over his shoulders.  Has been for the past hour.  He’s obviously hiding something, and by the size of his coat, and the way he’s holding it closed, we can assume he’s selling something.  Probably illegally.”

            As if on cue, another man entered the shade of the street corner and pressed a flash of green into the man’s hand, and the man in the larger overcoat withdrew a gleaming silver candlestick and handed it over to the other.  Gemma gasped.

            “Thieves!  Melchior, we’ve got to stop them!”

            “No point,” he said.  “They could be holding a knife or gun under that coat, and no police could get here fast enough.  We could die in under a minute.”

            Gemma shivered.  “How did you know to look for that sort of thing?  And is it worth writing about?”

            “It was simple: I looked for the shadier things.  They looked scared and suspicious, and they proved to be both.  You could write a story about it if it turned into a bigger thing, but two thieves on a street corner isn’t that jaw-dropping.”

            Gemma groaned.  “This is going to take forever to learn!  I don’t have as much experience as you do!”

            “That’s why I’m here to help you,” Melchior explained, standing up.  “If you’re not a better journalist by 1898, I’ll...I’ll eat my hat.”

            “You don’t have a hat.”

            “Fine, then, I’ll eat yours.”

            Fiff grumbled from the curb, kicking a pebble, “Oh, you’re a real charmer, you are.”

Melchior ignored this and stood up.  “I think it’s time we head home, don’t you, Mr. Fiff?”

            “What if Jimmy ain’t done yet?”

            Gemma grinned at Fiff, standing up as well and brushing herself off.  “I think Melchior’s right: I haven’t got anything good, and I might as well leave off for the day.  But you’ll walk with me?  At least until we reach 5th?”

            The boys didn’t have a problem with it.

 

            “I’m sorry if I seemed rude,” Gemma began to Melchior as they walked steadily towards 5th Avenue.  “I really don’t mind that Fiff is living with you now.  I actually think it’s rather kind of you.”

            “Are you sure there aren’t any lingering feelings of jealousy in this apology?”

            “Only a few.  I still wish that I’d been the one to offer him his first home.  But he seems to trust you, so I’m happy he’s happy.”

            “And you aren’t angry that I’ll be coming along from now on?”

            “Only a little bit.  It seems I won’t be able to get rid of you now,” she laughed, swatting him with her notes.  “Especially if you’re going to teach me to be a better journalist by 1898.”

            “That’s a promise.  You’ll be quite good if we work your skills, but right now they’re threatening your writing.”

            “Oi, Melcor Gabor, always good with the ladies,” Fiff sighed as he grabbed Gemma’s hand.  “Don’t mind him, Jim, he just don’t know how to give a proper compliment.  You’re a brilliant writer, everyone says so.  Mr. Howard loves your stuff!”

            “Yes, I would say Melchior’s just a bit sore at my success,” Gemma said through pursed lips.  Melchior rolled his eyes.

            “I’m not sore, I’m genuinely offering help.  And this is the thanks I get?  Accusations of jealousy?  What did I do to deserve them?”

            Fiff and Gemma could do nothing but laugh all the way home.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Wilhelmina Keeper gave her daughter strict instructions to prepare for the elaborate dinner she’d made arrangements for, and Gemma was indeed preparing—just for something else.  Here she stood, in her chemise and bodice (quite shockingly), peeping out her window to look for shady characters.  She was determined to have refined her skills on hunting for stories for next week, and if a certain Melchior Gabor noticed and was pleased that she was getting almost as good as him, well, that was certainly a plus.

            “He’ll see,” she muttered, watching the passersby and looking for the ‘scared, suspicious people’.  “I’m just as good a journalist.  I just need more practice.”

            The dinner tonight was specifically for her, and for Harry: the Madison family was coming over for a full course meal to see the interactions between the future couple.  At least Alice and Patrick would be there, and Patrick could spare her some embarrassment with a joke or jest.

            Harry wasn’t exactly bad; in fact, he truly was amazing—handsome, jovial, sweet, but also concerned and loyal.  A true gentleman, and the best part was, they weren’t total strangers.  They’d even become sort of good friends when her sister and his brother were getting married.  There was no doubt that they were on good terms, and that he cared about her very much. 

            Gemma slowly left the window and methodically picked up a pillow, screaming into it until her lungs were empty.  The pillow muffled the sound.

            “Gemma!  Good gracious, child, put on your dress!  Fix your hair!  I told you to prepare an hour ago!” Wilhelmina cried when she flung open the door.  Gemma threw down the pillow, shocked at being discovered, but her mother ignored the pillow and slapped a corset onto the dumbfounded girl, tightening the strings while she squirmed and squeaked. 

            “Did Annie lay out a dress?” her mother asked tersely. 

            “Mmhmm, the yellow one,” Gemma replied, holding onto a bedpost for support while her mother continued to pull. 

            “That one makes you look sallow.  You’ll wear your red one.”

            Gemma rolled her eyes and let herself be poked and prodded with whalebone and horsehair.  It was all easier if she just gave in and let her mother dress her up like a doll, and her mind was away in a fantasyland.

            In her dreams, she’d run away long ago and was living successfully as a journalist with Fiff in some exotic part of the world.

            Gemma cocked her head.  She supposed Melchior had to be a part of her dreams now, since he’d made it quite clear he wasn’t going to let Fiff go anywhere without him.

            _Well, then,_ she told herself.  _Time to revise the dream._   In her new dream, she was a famous journalist living in some exotic part of the world with Fiff, and Melchior was somewhere nearby, watching over Fiff and generally annoying Gemma.

 

            “Dinner was exceptional tonight, Mrs. Keeper,” Harry said with a grin and a nod toward the hostess.  “My compliments to the chef, as always.”

            “Oh, Harry, you charmer,” Wilhelmina giggled into her napkin.  “Tell our Gemma about your investments.  I hear they’re doing quite well this year.  You’ve made a fortune!”  
            Harry concealed a groan with a cough and stood up.  “I’ll tell her at a different time.  For now, how about we adjourn to the parlor?  Miss Mary can recite some verses for us.”

            “A splendid idea,” the hostess agreed, clapping everyone up.  “To the parlor, if you please.”

            The two families followed Mrs. Keeper, with Gemma and Harry at the tail of the party.  As the families walked down the hall, Harry gently grabbed Gemma’s elbow and steered her toward to sitting room.

            “Mr. Madison,” she said brusquely.  “We can’t be in here alone together!  To be seen together in here—without a chaperone—is most unheard of!”

            He led her despite this to the window seat.  “I have no intention of doing things here that would require us to be alone.  Well, what I meant was…well, you get my meaning.  I just want to talk to you.”

            “We’ve been talking all evening.”

            “If you consider wan smiles and courting textbook answers to all my questions conversation, then yes.  Look, I’m really sorry about this whole dinner thing; I can tell you don’t like it.”

            Gemma had been looking away, but Harry’s genuine concern caused her to look at him with an apologetic grin.  “Forgive me?”

            “Forgive you?  Of course, Gem!  None of this is your fault.  How’s your writing coming along?  You always liked to write stories.”

            “My writing?” Gemma asked, trying to mask her worry.  She’d never been a good liar or actress.  “I, uh…gave it up years ago.  It was unbefitting for a proper young lady.”

            “You gave it up?  That’s horrible, you wrote the sweetest little stories!”

            “It’s really quite fine.  I have more time to play piano, and paint, and read…”

            “Oh, very fun pastimes, I’m sure,” he joked.  “Come on, Gem.  I can tell you’re bored.  Maybe even a little scared.  You barely touched your food at dinner.”

            _You have no idea_ , she wanted to respond, but she could never.  “I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.”

            “Oh…” he said, looking almost comically confused.  A little awkwardly, he pulled Gemma into a hug, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her tight.

            “Harry, you can’t do this, we’ll get caught—”

            “I’m not trying to pull anything,” he promised.  “I just feel so terribly.  You shouldn’t feel nervous, because I won’t make this difficult for you.  Your mother might try and make things as…well, drawn out as possible, but it won’t be so bad.  You know I think the world of you.  I couldn’t be happier if this does end up in an engagement.”

            Gemma loosened up at that, placing her hands on Harry’s neck.  “Thank you, Harry.  Thank you for being so kind.”

            “I know you were afraid of getting stuck with someone boring, or someone abusive.  I am neither, as you well know.”

            She laughed at that, releasing him.  “You certainly aren’t boring.  You really are funny, Mr. Madison.”

            “So, what have you been up to?  I haven’t heard from you really since you got back from Cliffwood.”

            “Oh…er, nothing, really.  The usual routine.  How about you?” she quickly changed the subject.  “Stock market wizard and most eligible bachelor.  The all-around catch.  You did say you were going to tell me about your investments.”

            “Those are all boring, stuffy men things.  I’d much rather hear about what you’ve been doing.”

            “Oh, but my life is so much more dull than yours must be,” she skirted the subject again.  “Go on, tell me about what you’ve been doing.”

            Harry still was curious about what Gemma was up to: she was, after all, a dreadful liar and was obviously hiding something, but he conceded and began to talk about his recent charity work.  

            After all, Harry was a man, and men can’t resist talking about themselves.

 

            “NO!  NO, PLEASE!  LET HER GO, SHE DID NOTHING!” Melchior thrashed in his sleep, arching off his makeshift bed on the couch.  Fiff lay awake on the bed in utter terror, clutching a book for dear life.  He couldn’t read it, not yet, but it served as a good shield against Melchior, across the room and acting possessed.

            “Should I recite some of the Bible or somethin’?” he wondered aloud, wincing at Melchior’s continued screaming.

            “IT WAS ME—ALL ME!  I’M SO SORRY!”

            “Melchior—” Fiff began tentatively, cut off again by the screams.  He’d known it was bad before he’d seen him asleep, and it was killing the little boy to have to listen to this torture.

            Sleeping in the house for the past two weeks, Melchior had kept it to the occasional moan and twitching, swatting at invisible enemies, but he’d never screamed like this before.

            Swallowing to gain courage, Fiff tried to push past his fear to walk over to his ailing friend.  “I promised,” he whispered, and after several failed attempts to poke him awake, Fiff went all out and started smashing the book on Melchior’s arm.

            “Wake—up—wake—up—wake—up—”

            _Smack smack smack smack smack smack._

“SHE—she—Fiff?” Melchior asked, finally gaining consciousness and sitting up.  He winced in pain as he rubbed his forehead with one hand and flexed his smacked arm.  It dawned on him then.  “I was screaming, wasn’t I?”

            “Yes.”

            “I’m so sorry,” he choked out, miraculously not crying.  That was new.  “I was doing so well, and they were getting better.  They really were.  It’s just…this one was more graphic than before.  It was one of the worst.”     

            Fiff didn’t really understand, but he rubbed Melchior’s back like a mother would a sick child.  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he soothed.  “They can’t hurt you anymore.  I’m going to fix this.  All of it.  I really am.”  
            Melchior resisted the urge to sigh or roll his eyes: if a grown man can’t handle his nightmares, an eleven-year-old couldn’t chase them away.  “Why don’t you go back to sleep?  I can wake you in the morning.”

            “Won’t you be going back to bed?”

            “No, I’ll read.  I’ve some new words to learn.”

            Fiff grumbled as Melchior opened a dog-eared German-English dictionary.  “I thought you’d read that book cover to cover by now, Melchi.”

            “Always new words to learn,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the dictionary.  “You get back to sleep.  I’m sorry I woke you.”

            “I’m not,” Fiff said with an apologetic smile.  “I have my work cut out for me, don’t I?  But I will find a way to make it all stop.”


	13. Chapter 13

“Feast your eyes on this!” Gemma said triumphantly, running into the Red Fish with a fistful of papers in her hand.  “Feast your eyes and bite your tongue for once, Melchi!”  
            Melchior immediately groaned that his nickname was catching on so quickly, glaring openly at the exuberant Gemma.  “No one gave you permission to call me that, Gemma.”

            “I can’t help it, nicknames are easier for me to say,” she explained in a rush, winking at Fiff.  “Just read the notes.  Read them and weep.”

            Melchior complied and studied the papers for several minutes, unfolding the creases and seemingly concentrating very hard.  Gemma watched, breathless, from across the table the boys had chosen and only tore her eyes away from her critic when coffees were brought to the trio.

            Melchior suppressed a sigh.  “How long did you spend watching your street to get this information?”

            “The entire past week, three hours a day at my window.  The men in my notes were clearly up to something: they went through everyone’s trash in the back on our street.  Obviously, they must be spies or thieves looking for valuables accidentally thrown away!”

            “Well…” Melchior didn’t exactly know where to begin.  “Did you, erm, investigate?  See what they were really up to?”

            “I couldn’t leave the house for that.  But after going through the trash, they took entire trash bins and _stole them away_!  They’re obviously hoarding the trash and going through it for valuables.”  
            “Or they could just be garbagemen,” Melchior finished a little sadly. 

            “What?  No, that’s impossible!  They all wore matching uniforms, they’re obviously part of a crime ring…”

            Gemma was suddenly very embarrassed at her naiveté: how could she, the brilliant and talented Jimmy Hugo, mistake garbage collectors for _thieves_???

            “Why did they go through the trash, though?  They could have been spies masquerading as garbagemen!”  Gemma reasoned.

            “It’s possible they were indeed looking for valuables or food; garbagemen certainly don’t make that much money, and anything extra wouldn’t hurt financially.  I’m sorry, Gemma,” he said, awkwardly patting her hand.  “I think you were just a little desperate for something worth writing about.”

            Gemma put her head in her hands.  “I had no idea they were garbage collectors.  I honestly thought they were spies or thieves.”

            “You’re just a little story-hungry.  It’s not your fault; you haven’t ever been exposed to garbage collecting work.  It was an honest mistake caused by your upbringing.”

            “Thanks, that makes me feel so much better,” she moaned, causing Fiff to pat her more comfortingly. 

            “Jim, stuff’s gonna come your way,” he said.  “It has to!”

            Gemma sipped her coffee in silence as her cheeks burned.  She’d never been more humiliated in her entire life; not when she’d first met Melchior covered in ink, not when the girls at Cliffwood cut her hair while she fell asleep in French class, not even when she’d tumbled down the stairs at Alice’s coming out party.  Those things were beyond her intellect and control, but garbagemen?  She couldn’t identify garbagemen after a week of investigation?

            Melchior looked at her a little regretfully: he could have lied and said the notes were quite obviously the records of spies on her street, but what good would it have done?

            Fiff and Melchior exchanged looks and went to drink their coffees, with Melchior considering a menu.  They rarely ate at the Red Fish, but it was lunchtime and the least he could do was treat his ward and the girl he’d been so unfeeling as to embarrass.

 

Gemma focused on everything around her but the boy in front of her.  The coffee was a good place to stare, as well as the chairs and bar a few yards away.  In fact, it was easiest to focus at the goings-on of the bar.

Two people were quietly sipping coffees as well, looking tired—shipyard workers maybe?—while a group of men looked thoroughly drunk despite the earliness of the hour.  The bartender was arguing with someone, as usual, polishing a glass while he rolled his eyes at the man he was arguing with’s antics.

Fiff and Melchior were engaging in a thumb war of some kind, so Gemma focused solely on the bartender.

“I’m afraid I’m all out of rooms at the moment,” he said gruffly, putting the glass away. “There’s nothing I can offer.  Like I said, no vacancies.”

“This is an _inn_!” the man snarled.  “Kick someone out if you have to, I’ll pay good money for a room!  I just need a place to stay for one night, and I’ll be out of the city!”

 _Out of the city?_ Gemma couldn’t help but wonder.  Shifting around in her seat but lowering her cap over her eyes, she continued to watch their exchange. 

“Well, you listen to me, I run an honest establishment, and whatever you’re running from has no business here.”

“I can find a way to make it your business,” he said through gritted teeth.  “I’ll either make it worth your while or make you sorry you ever disagreed with me.”

“Melchior,” she whispered harshly.  “Melchior, something’s going on.”

The boy looked up and his expression snapped to serious in an instant.  Still, he couldn’t resist a joke.  “Street sweeper up to money laundering this time?”

“I’m serious,” she insisted, gesturing slightly with her head toward the bar.  “Listen!”

Melchior did more than listen, he leaned over the table surreptitiously and zeroed in on the bartender’s argument.  The man Gemma had not seen entirely was sallow, lean, and scarred—a shady character by all definitions.  He leaned over the bar with tight fists and a flickering gaze, and Melchior’s adrenaline kicked in.

Gemma was right: something was wrong, almost too coincidentally.  Directly after she bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t been in the same area as a villain or supposed criminal, she was in the midst of one.  In fact, he was yards away.

So what was he going to do about it?  Certainly not wait to find out if his judgment of the man was correct.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, pulling Fiff slowly from the table.  Gemma had an enigmatic gleam in her eye that didn’t leave even as he gently tugged her from her seat, making his way for the back door of the pub. 

“All right, then—NOBODY MOVE!” the man shouted. 

The pub was effectively frozen as the man pulled out dozens of knives from his pockets, brandishing them at those closest to him.

 _Well, this is perfect_ , Melchior groaned inwardly as Fiff shuddered next to him, paralyzed with fear.  He didn’t know if the man had any talent with his knives, and if he could throw them and reach a moving target.

“Wait, I know you—you’re Knife Johnson!” a hysterical customer cried, pointing a finger at the criminal.  “You’re responsible for the—the bank robberies!  You’ve got over 50,000 dollars on you!”

“Shut up!” he shouted, threatening the customer with a knife near his nose.  “I’ll kill every one of you!  I’ll do it in a blink!”

 _Terrible actor_ , Melchior continued with his inner monologue.  _This Knife Johnson seems as terrified as we all are.  Probably couldn’t swat a fly.  But I still need to get these two out of here._

He felt Fiff still shuddering at his side, feeling sympathy for the brave little boy.  He’d dealt with so much already, it was strange how situations like this made him realize how young Fiff really was.

Gemma, however, was not shuddering away; in fact, she was rather still.  He couldn’t even tell she was standing next to him.

Which made it not surprising in the least when Melchior turned slightly to see that Gemma was not standing beside him and had never been standing beside him.

In fact, she was currently crawling behind the bar.

“Damn it,” Melchior growled. 

 

“Now, in case you’ve been living under a rock, this dimwit is right: I’m the infamous Knife Johnson!  And you’ll be finding a knife in each of you if you don’t stay where you are and let me take what I need from this joint.  After I leave, you’re to stay here and not tell anyone of this little meeting we’ve had, and in return, I’ll be as kind as to not gut you like pigs.  Savvy?”

The infamous Knife Johnson didn’t get the chance to hear any replies, because at that moment, a mug of hot coffee was smashed over his head.  Unfortunately for the smasher, this just made the infamous Knife Johnson angrier and wilder than before.

He wheeled around to face the attacker, who was, of course, Gemma standing on the bar looking a tad less heroic. 

“That,” he snarled, taking a swipe at her with a smaller knife, “was very, very stupid.”

“Heheh…” Gemma giggled sadly, jumping off the bar.  She knew that in a storybook, the hero who’d valiantly attacked the villain was supposed to fight and come up with a witty retort, but her only really snappy comebacks were usually reserved for Melchior.  She was in a pickle.

“This is stupider,” a voice called from behind, and the infamous Knife Johnson found himself hit over the head with the entire cash register.  Gemma gasped in surprise when the criminal fell down and Fiff sprung from the background to tie his hand with some spare twine.  Melchior, the obvious brandisher of the cash register, dropped the heavy thing with a huff and shook his head.  “I can’t believe I said, ‘stupider’, it’s not even a word!”

Gemma stood speechless while the rest of the pub leapt into hysteria and chaos, with some calling for the police and others tying up the man for real.  Gemma still was unable to say anything, so Melchior said it for her.

“What were you _thinking_?!” he yelled, shaking her by the shoulders.  “What kind of an idiotic slip smashes a TEACUP on an armed criminal’s head?

            “I wasn’t really thinking,” she said, throwing his arms off.  “I just did.  I remember reading about things like this, and I thought if he couldn’t see me, I could save everyone here.”

            “Oh, please, he wasn’t going to hurt anyone, he was just as scared as we were.  But you came dangerously close to a misplaced stab, and then where would you have been!”

            Fiff piped in with a furious look in his eyes: “You’d have been right dead!  Jimmy, you’re supposed to be the smart one!”

            Gemma ignored both of them, knowing only that she hadn’t been hurt and that she could carry out her ulterior motive.  “Melchior,” she said.  “How much do you think the New York Times would pay for the earliest available story of the arrest of infamous robber Knife Johnson?”

            Melchior could have slapped her and kissed her all at the same time.  “You…are…certifiably insane.  You did this to get a story?”

            “No, it’s just that…well, I came, I saw a scary and suspicious character, I investigated, and I was a first-hand witness of the event.  Now it’s time for me to finish up and get a real article out of it, like you told me to.  You’ll help me?”

            “I never told you to do something so stupid.  I can’t even begin to—I don’t even know where to begin to scold you,” Melchior said, still clearly furious.  He pulled up a chair at the bar while the rest of the pub was still in a terrified frenzy and absently grabbed a shot off the table.  Fiff tried to do the same, but Melchior slapped the drink out of the boy’s hand and drank it himself. 

            “Go ahead,” he said.  “Do what you want.  I’m not your father, you don’t need my permission to enter a riot caused by the arrest of an acclaimed _criminal_.”

            Gemma knew she should be considerably more frightened, and that of all people she should be curled into fetal position now, calling for her mother, but she really just felt excited.  The entire thing had given her a buzz, and she set to work immediately with her pad and pencil to catch every little bit of information.  She detailed the arrest when the police arrived and got interviews with half the pub that helped her understand more of Knife Johnson was: she must have been living under a rock, because she only had a vague idea of who he was before meeting him and certainly not a care about him.

            She moved fast enough and moved around so much that the hysterical victims didn’t have the chance to recognize her as the mug-smasher.

            Melchior and Fiff waited outside for her, successfully avoiding the interrogations at the hands of the authorities, so all the witnesses to the event said that an unknown man had taken out Johnson with the help of a little boy and another young person (the cap had made him/her hard to distinguish).

           

            “Jimmy’s coming out now,” said Fiff offhandedly, nodding to the Red Fish’s door.  They’d been waiting for an hour, evading the police and eventual small gatherings of press by moving from street to street.  Fiff was beyond bored, and Melchior seemed lost in thought. 

            Gemma sped across the avenue with bright eyes.  “I wrote down everything,” she said in a rush as she showed off her report proudly.  “I’m sure you’ll approve, Melchior.  Sure to be better than a story of self-righteous opinions on the homeless.”

            Melchior grunted and looked at the report while Gemma and Fiff giggled.  “He is the only one who didn’t like my first article, isn’t he?” she laughed.

            “Aw, he’s a fibber.  It’s up in our flat, he pinned it on the wall.”

            “ _Private_ , Fiff,” Melchior hissed.

            Gemma laughed all the harder.  “You pinned my story to your wall?”

            “Don’t flatter yourself, it’s only to get me angry at my competition.  Anyway,” he said, handing back the notes, “we’re not going to be competition for this one.  I’m helping you write it.  We’re doing the Gabor-Hugo piece with this one.”

            Gemma would have argued that she could write it herself, but she was simply too excited with the day’s events to disagree.  Right now, nothing sounded better than some honest work at hashing out a new article for the Times with Melchior Gabor and Fiff.

            So, of course, she threw her arms around Melchior and hugged him, causing him to make a little choked sound in the back of his throat.  Gemma ignored it, even ignoring the fact that he stiffened and let his arms hang awkwardly at his sides, and just savored the moment: she’d survived a stick-up at a pub and gotten a front page story for the New York Times, and both things she couldn’t have done without the man she was holding.

            “Keeper,” he said, clearing his throat, “we have a story to write.”

            She frowned at being called by her last name and stepped back, picking up Fiff.  “We do.  Where’s your home?”

            “My home?”

            “We meet at the Red Fish, but that’s impossible now.  Where else can we work but your flat?”

            Melchior just looked shocked, but he shook his head to clear it and smiled.  “You won’t be impressed,” he said, leading the two down the street and toward his apartment.

            “I’m sure it’ll be just fine.”

 

            All the way there, he couldn’t help but repeat a small sentence in his head. 

_She hugged me._

_She hugged me._

_She hugged me!_

_She HUGGED me._

It was very disconcerting how he wasn’t sure how that sentence made him feel. 


	14. Chapter 14

They’d worked endlessly on it all day, after they’d gotten settled at the apartment.  Gemma, to her credit, said nothing of the messy flat except that it was ‘perfect’.

            “Perfect?” he’d asked, taking off his jacket and starting a fire in the stove to keep away the November chill.  “It’s no 5th Avenue mansion.”

            “It’s not,” she’d agreed, sitting on a stool and pulling out her notes.  “But it’s very…you.  All the books and papers all over the place.  It reminds me of what a newsroom probably looks like.”

            After much begging and persuading, Fiff was allowed to go to his old home alone to check on his friends.  Melchior would have worried more about his ward, but once he got to work with Gemma he forgot about him almost completely.

            They’d worked through the day, arguing on wording and interpreting interviews and unintelligible scrawl.  Gemma alternated between exuberance and fury, taking turns at marveling at Melchior’s ideas and then yelling at him for being inconsiderate or stubborn.  It was almost entertaining.

            Melchior of course, stayed with the same cool, smarter-than-thou demeanor, but when they agreed on things to write in their article, only good things came from it.  Fiff came home eight hours later to find both still working, despite things getting late.  Their hands were covered in ink and crumpled pieces of paper made a mountain behind them, but they were blissfully unaware and still writing, arguing and laughing and generally being very unprofessional.

            Melchior brought it to Mr. Howard that Tuesday and it ran on Sunday, the first story on Knife Johnson’s arrest in the entire city. 

            Gemma rode on the high of their joint success, and after Annie came up with a decent cover for her absence, she actually summed up the courage to visit Knife Johnson in jail awaiting trial.

            She’d actually been very clever about the entire thing, at least in her opinion: she’d paid the guards to let her through and masqueraded as the criminal’s sister, because if anyone was intrepid enough to seek and exclusive interview with a famous robber, it was Jimmy Hugo.

            She wasn’t happy with the results, though.

 

            “Who is it?” Melchior responded to the knock on the door.  “Fiff, I hope you didn’t lose your key, because I only had the one.”

            “It’s me,” she said.  “May I come in?”

            Melchior was perplexed immediately.  Gemma was due for a meeting next week, unless he was forgetting something.  Checking the list she’d made them with the dates for their meetings, he called from his chair.  “Of course, give me a moment.”

            He almost tripped over himself in his attempt to reach the door, fumbling with the doorknob before opening the door for her.  “We didn’t have a meeting today,” he said, running an ink-stained hand through his hair. 

            Gemma didn’t answer right away, hugging herself instead and pacing around the room slowly.  “What were you working on?”

            “Erm, I was working on my book, actually.  It’s been awhile since I had time to really work on it.”

            “I’m sorry to have interrupted,” she said.  “Should I leave?”

            “No, it’s fine,” he replied.  Tentatively taking a few steps toward her, he asked softly.  “Is everything all right?  You seem a little…off.”

            “I got an interview with Knife Johnson today.”

            Melchior was flabbergasted.  “What—how—when did—what happened?  You got an interview?  How?  Don’t tell me you went alone.”

            She didn’t answer.

            “You did NOT go to a prison alone, Gemma Keeper.  Tell me you didn’t—tell me—Gemma, for goodness’ sake, why would you do something so stupid?”  
            “There were guards all around, nothing bad could’ve happened.  It’s just that...” she began, cursing herself for sounding so whiny and small.  “Melchior, how do we do it?”

            “Do what?”

            “We exploit people for these stories.  I don’t mean to say that Knife Johnson’s a good person who doesn’t deserve punishment, but we do these things all the time, as reporters.  We take their mistakes and problems and turn them into front-page spreads, and we make money off it.  Doesn’t that make us bad in a way?”

            “Bad?  _Bad_?  We give people news.  That’s what they ask for and pay for.  It’s what they need to know,” he said impatiently, sitting down.  “Don’t tell me you’re having qualms about our story because Johnson gave you a sob story.  And furthermore, how did he not recognize you?”

            “He was broken, Melchior.  He was past recognizing anyone, he was just so sad.  He was scared and alone, and I couldn’t help but think…maybe, it would’ve done a little good for him if we hadn’t printed the story.  It would have lessened all the heartless talk about him.”

            He couldn’t believe his ears.  “You’re feeling sympathy for a convict?  He’s hurt people and taken loads of money from honest people, and you’re now defending him?  You’re—impossible!”  
            Shaken out of her sorrowful thoughts, Gemma was red-hot with anger now.  “I’m impossible for feeling for another human being?  That’s what you have to say about it?”

            “It’s not the sympathy, it’s just that…you think you know a whole lot.  Especially about honor.  It’s honorable to write about the homeless, it’s honorable to look after Fiff, it’s honorable to smash a MUG on a robber’s head, it’s honorable to report on an arrest, it’s honorable to feel bad for the robber you helped condemn—you’re up to your knees in honor, aren’t you?  You talk the talk all the time, but when it comes time to walk the walk and feel good that you’ve brought justice, you have to uphold your precious morals and regret it!”  
            “My precious morals?” she screeched.  “I’m not some self-righteous nun!”

            “Aren’t you?  You’re the definition of self-righteous.  You think very highly of yourself and your good deeds and secret life.”

            “Listen to yourself!  If anyone’s self-righteous, it’s you, and—oh, I’m going home,” she said gruffly, storming out of the flat. 

            Melchior stayed standing, sick and tired of Gemma Keeper and everything she had to say. 

 

But he knew he was just waiting for her to come back and apologize.

            Which she did.

            “I’m sorry,” she said, walking right back in the apartment ten minutes later.  Melchior didn’t even acknowledge her entrance, continuing to write.  “You just got my goat for the moment.”

            “One of my many talents.”

            “Sure.  I guess I don’t walk the walk all the time.  You’re not wrong in saying I’m self-righteous.  You are too, sometimes.”

            “Gemma…” he began, turning to face her.  “Do you think you’re ready for this sort of career?  You’d have to write a lot more condemning material, and you can’t let your morals get in the way of delivering straight news.”

            “I know, and I don’t entirely agree with you,” she chuckled, “but I think I have to think about the whole journalism thing.  At least go on hiatus for a little while.  Maybe we could regroup after Christmas?”

            “You’re staying away until after Christmas?” he asked with an edge of panic.  He didn’t know what he and Fiff would do each week without Gemma to keep them company. 

            “No, I’ll still come over,” she said.  “If I’m allowed.  It’s nice here, and I don’t really care about the unchaperoned bit.”

            “Oh, don’t you?” he smirked.

            “Not a bit.  Fiff’s no threat to my safety, and you, you’d better be a gentleman,” she returned with a smirk to equal his own. 

            He smiled lightly at that, taking in Gemma’s identical smirk, and felt somber once more for his part of the argument.  “I’m sorry, too, you know,” he said.  “I don’t often think about what I say before I say it.”

            “I noticed.”

            “Don’t be like that!  I mean it.  I’ve been…well, I’ve been alone for a long time now, and it’s taking me time to figure out how to act around you and Fiff.  It’s taking time for me to remember how.”

            Gemma could sense that he was on the edge of opening up on something.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

            “Oh, no, I know what you’re up to.  We’re not doing the Melchior’s Secret Past explanation.”

            “Fiff said you explained it to him.”

            “Fiff doesn’t know the half of it.  He’s only eleven.”

            “Fine, then!” Gemma surrendered, getting up to leave.  “I’ll see you soon?  And it’s all right for me to just wait here for you two?”

            “Yes and yes,” he answered, holding the door open for her as she exited.  “Be careful.  I mean it, stop doing stupid things and be careful.  You have a good head on your shoulders, so use it.”

            “Thanks ever so much,” she said with a sarcastic grin, heading home.


	15. Chapter 15

“Everyone who’s anyone in Manhattan will be at my coming-out party,” Mary seethed over fabric samples, “and if I can’t have magenta napkins, I will never speak to you again!  I mean it, Mother!  I won’t!”

            “Magenta is simply too outrageous a color, my dear,” Wilhelmina tried to soothe her daughter, offering instead a lighter sample.  “We could use a nice rose pink or cream, and there would be no talk.”

            “I won’t have it!  I’m the one who turned eighteen two months ago!  I should get to choose!”

            “Really, Mary, you’re being difficult for no reason.  Alice agreed with me when she turned eighteen, and you’d do well to follow in her footsteps.”

            Gemma was off in her own little world while her sister and mother argued, knowing full well that Wilhelmina would win.  She and Annie sat looking over available dates in December that the party could be held, suggesting a new day and time every few minutes.

            “How about December 19th, miss?” Annie said, taking over the slack.  “We could start the party in the afternoon and have dancing in the evening.”

            “I’m afraid that won’t do, Annie.  Oh, I’ll find the date myself,” she sighed, picking up the calendar.  “I have to do every bit of planning by myself around here, don’t I?”  
            Gemma was dreading the party as much as Mary was looking forward to it, because above all, she was not a party person.  She’d much rather sit in her room and read for the night.  _Maybe Annie can work out an excuse for me…_ she thought before shaking her head.  Annie had done enough.

            Gemma briefly considered sneaking out before the party, since she had absolutely no one to talk to.  All of Mary’s Cliffwood friends would be there as well as the top of society, but the only person she’d even think of talking to was Harry, and the more she talked to him, the brighter the chances for their marriage contract to actually come through.

            Squeezing the table to avoid hitting it with her fist, she complained in her mind that Harry was chosen for Gemma and not Mary.  Mary was of age to be married, Mary was closer in age to Harry. 

            She knew her father had made arrangements especially for her, to be nice to her, since she and Harry had gotten along so well before Alice’s wedding.  But she’d been fourteen then, and he’d been sixteen and he was funny and kind.  She’d felt happy with him around, like she’d finally gotten a chance to see what it was like to have an older brother.

            There was still time.  Her father could be persuaded otherwise.  Harry would understand, wouldn’t he?  She wasn’t after any other man, she just wanted her own freedom.  And there’d been no formal engagement.

            “Gemma?” Wilhelmina asked, composed once more.  “Will you be inviting any friends to the party?”

            “Friends?” she wanted desperately to scoff. 

            “From Cliffwood, of course.  Your dear girls from school.”

            “School?” She had no response for this.  Who could she ask?

           

            She could always ask Melchior and Fiff.

            But they wouldn’t want to go, they couldn’t go.  There was no way her mother would allow them to be invited.

Unless she played everything the right way.

“You know, Mother,” she said, “I’ll think about it.”

 

            “I have news!” she said as soon as she burst through the door, not surprising the two occupants in the least.  Her biweekly visits were such a commonplace occurrence now that they barely winced when she slammed the door open with her usual introductions.

            “I thought you were taking a hiatus off reporting,” mumbled Melchior lazily as he moved a bishop on the second-hand chessboard he bought Fiff for his birthday. 

            “I am!  I mean, it’s not that kind of news!” she laughed as she sat down, watching the boys’ chess game.  “You know my sister Mary?”

            “Marny!  You don’t talk about her much,” Fiff asked with equal laziness. 

            “She turned eighteen back in October, and we’re holding her coming-out party on the 20th.”

            “What’s a coming-out party?” Fiff asked further.

            “A coming-out party is a celebration of when a girl becomes old enough to be married and considered an adult.  There’s a party with good food and music and dancing and dresses,” she gushed.

            “So, essentially, it’s your worst nightmare?” Melchior inquired, taking a pawn.

            “Pretty much.  But,” she said, relishing her news, “I get to invite any of my friends.  So consider yourselves invited.”

            Melchior actually knocked over half the board in shock.  “Invited?  To an upper class 5th Avenue birthday party?”

            “It’s simple, Melchi!  Say you’re part of the press covering the party, Mother will eat it up!  No one will notice you’re there, and I won’t have to suffer through this alone!  We can laugh at the old ladies in poofy dresses!”

            “Sign me up!” Fiff said happily, setting up the pieces.  “I’m in all the way, Jimmy!”  
            “You can be a young cousin.  I’ll get one of Jacky’s old suits for you, and you’ll fit right in.  My mother’s not even in charge of the guest list, so she’ll never know!”

            “No,” Melchior replied simply.  “This will only end in humiliation on all our ends.  We’re not going.”

            “Where’s your sense of fun?” Fiff complained.  “Jimmy’s got it all worked out, she has.  All you have to do is show up looking smart, and you’ll look no different than anyone else.”

            “It’s not looking different that I’m worried about, it’s—oh, never mind!” he exclaimed, giving up on the chess game.

            “Is that a no?” Gemma asked with a face as hard as stone. 

            “It’s a no.  Gemma, how could you think even for a second I could go to something like this?  Only you would think of something this crazy.  I’m not going to be involved, and you’ll be lucky if Fiff isn’t.”

            “I can go?” Fiff was ecstatic.

            Melchior groaned.  “Yes, you can, but Gemma has to get you something to wear.”

            “YAY!” Gemma and Fiff cheered in unison, hugging each other and hugging whatever part of Melchior they could get a hold of, almost like children.

            “Oh, get off!” Melchior grumbled, ever the stick in the mud.  “Gemma, I’ll play you best two out of three.  Be warned, I’ve read several books on chess and I’m rather good at it.”

           

            “Why won’t you come with us?” Fiff whined later when Melchior was putting him to bed.  “It’s going to be a right wonderful time.”

            Melchior didn’t even pretend to think about it and continued to tuck Fiff in, which he was surprisingly good at doing.  “Because you’re going to get caught and kicked out and humiliated and Gemma will only get in trouble.”

            “Cor, do you really think that?”

            “Yes…” Melchior began, but when faced with Fiff’s puppy dog eyes he was forced into honesty.  “No.  You’ll probably have a fun time if you behave.  But I don’t want to go.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because I don’t want to.”

            “Whyyyyy?”

            “Because I can’t go.”

            Fiff sighed and glared up at him from the pillow.  “That’s a weak excuse.  What are you hiding?”

            “Nothing.  I just don’t think I belong there.  In that world, I mean.”

            “Why not?”

            Melchior tried to smile.  “I’m happy where I am.  In my world.”

            “Are you?”

            “All right, _happier_ , at least.”

            “But why?” Fiff whined still.  “I don’t understand.  You’re just being difficult.”

            With a final tug on the blankets, Melchior backed away from the bed in defeat.  “I just have my reasons, Fiff.  Try and understand that I just can’t go and be done with it.  At least Gemma understands.”

            “She pretends to.”

            “Stop it.  We’re finishing this discussion.  Now go to bed.”


	16. Chapter 16

She woke up under a tree as evening was breaking and did not scream.

            She would have screamed, surely, but for her terror and temperature.  It had to be twenty degrees out, and here she was, slumped under a tree on the frostbitten ground. 

            Gemma slowly propped herself up, leaning against the trunk for support: however she’d gotten here, she hadn’t left in a coat.  She was still in her pink dress she’d worn to lunch, though it was muddy and wrinkled and wet with tears.

            _Tears?_ She lifted some blue fingers to her face and felt frozen tear tracks.  She even felt a few warm ones slip down her face, beyond control.  _I need to get home._

_But I can’t go._

She remembered it now, how she’d broken at lunch.  They’d all been eating quietly, not doing anything particularly shocking, when she’d felt it.  All she’d done was stare at her soup when she felt something inside her shatter.  It was as if a tiny glass sculpture in her chest had collapsed, and after its breaking, everything else in her soul followed. 

            She’d known nothing else except that she couldn’t do it anymore, any of it, and so she’d excused herself and sprinted to her room, crying and wailing until she thought there was nothing left.  The walls seemed to close around her and she ran out of the house without an explanation or warning to Annie, and she didn’t stop running for hours. 

            Breathing hitched, sobs still coming, she’d felt she was going to die while she ran through the streets, pushing people and shoving herself through crowds until she couldn’t see anymore.  The next thing she knew, she was here.

            _I collapsed here, then,_ she assumed.  _But what now?_

Gemma still felt utterly broken.  She wasn’t herself anymore.  But she certainly wasn’t suicidal.  She was emotionless, an automaton.

            Pushing herself up and trying to warm her arms, she took stiff little steps away from the tree and hoped that she hadn’t gotten hypothermia.  Who knows how long she’d been sleeping under that tree?

            As she kept walking, the shock and cold wore away and a fresh round of tears erupted.  She was back to square one, sprinting through the park and out into the city once more while she cried all the while. 

 

            Fiff may have been a street urchin for most of his life, but he wasn’t one to swear or even say semi-bad words.  But he’d also never had to deal with something like this before.

            He’d been about to give up on the English language entirely because the letter “e” made no sense when Gemma’s knocked faintly on the door.  Opening the door a crack, he recognized her immediately and admitted her.

            “Hi, Jimmy!” he said brightly.  “Back for a visit so soon?”

            Then he saw what she looked like.

            “What the HELL happened to you?!” he screeched, seizing her by the hands and throwing her (as best an eleven year old boy could do) onto the threadbare couch.  “Jimmy, damn it, what’s wrong?”

            Gemma burst into tears again, curling up into a little ball on the couch.  Fiff could only gape in utter disbelief: he hair was tangled and a complete mess, her limbs were blue with cold, and even though she was wearing a dress for the first time in front of Fiff, it was ruined with rips, wrinkles, and mud splatters.

            “Fiff, I couldn’t do it anymore!” she wailed, sobs making her speech practically unintelligible.  “I couldn’t—and I just—I didn’t know—”

            “Shhh, shhh, um, it’s okay!” he said, trying to pat her on the back.  He’d never had to deal with something like this before.  “Melchior will be home soon, he’s out getting dinner.”

            She cried all the harder.

            “I c-can’t—let him see me like this!  I’m a wreck!”

            He fetched a sheet and draped it around her, tightening it and rushing to light a fire in the stove.  “You’re not a wreck, you’re, um, right fine!  Just you…just sit there and cry, okay?  You’ll warm up soon and Melchior will know what to do.”

            Gemma obliged him and continued to cry loudly, a complete jumble of emotions.  Where she’d fluctuated from hopelessly depressed hours ago to robotic when she woke under the tree, she was right back where she started: feeling as terrible and desperate and alone as she had before.  She’d expected in some small way that Fiff would know what to do, but she was now only embarrassed that he’d seen her like this.

            “Should I go and find him?” Fiff asked tentatively.

            “N-no, you shouldn’t g-g-go out in th-the cold!” she said through tears. 

            “I’ll be just fine.  Maybe I should go get him, he could take a while at the stores.  He’s, you know, a little picky on prices.”

            Gemma couldn’t answer anymore, and Fiff took his leave, shooting off like a bullet into the icy streets.  The sooner he found Melchior, the better, because Fiff had never had to deal with tears.  This was completely beyond him.

            Melchior was, as Fiff guessed, in a delicatessen, standing in front of a meat counter and looking a little ticked off.  “Forty cents for a bound of ground beef, my ass,” he grumbled.  “That’s the price of a good steak.  This isn’t worth the money.”

            He was, after all, perpetually low on money, and though he made enough for both boys to get by, he was a constant penny-pincher.

            “Melchi!  Melchi!” Fiff cried, stumbling into the shop and slipping a little on the icy doorstep.  “Melchi, come home quickly!”

            “You didn’t catch anything on fire, did you?” he asked as he turned from the counter.

            “Fire?  Cor, no, why do you always guess that?”

            “One day it’s bound to happen,” he shrugged.  “Okay, what’s the issue?”

            “It’s Gemma,” Fiff panted, surprising Melchior by actually using her name rather than a nickname.  “And it’s bad.  I didn’t know what to do.”

            Melchior dropped his bags on the ground and grabbed Fiff’s shoulders.  “Is she hurt?  How badly?  Did they kick her out?”

            “No, I don’t know!  She just came in, and she was all messed up.  I didn’t know what to do to help her, I actually didn’t know, so I ran out to find you!”

            The older boy’s eyes glazed over with innumerable possibilities of what had happened to his friend and he stood up, taking long and quick strides out of the store.  Fiff scrambled to pick up the bags he’d left behind in the store and ran out of the shop after him.  But Melchior was nowhere in sight.  This just agitated Fiff more as he carried the heavy bags home, cursing whoever had made Gemma so upset.  It messed everything up now.

           

            Melchior didn’t think at all when he’d left the deli, letting Gemma’s presence at his flat pull him like a cable to her side.  He acknowledged that Fiff could have been exaggerating, and Gemma could be at his house right now only a little upset.  But he knew it wasn’t true, because the second Fiff had called for him he’d felt that something was horribly wrong.

            The sooner he got to her, the better: such evil things could have happened that he needed to fix for her.  If he could.

            He nearly slipped on ice patches on his way there, but he wasn’t necessarily running: he was getting pulled by that cable-like feeling, keeping his eyes focused in front of him.  He threw open the thin wooden door to his flat and up the creaky stairs he went, stumbling half-blind with worry.

            His door was thrown open similarly, and there Gemma was.

            She’d curled up on the couch, sobbing into its arm while clutching his white sheet around her shoulders, but when she’d heard the door open her head had popped up.  She didn’t say anything, but let her mouth hang open in a little “o” of surprise, tear tracks running down her cheeks and large grey eyes wide with shock and bloodshot.

            He didn’t say anything either, and instead made his way across the room in two large strides and caught her up in his arms.

            Melchior had refused to hug her back weeks ago, on that dreadful day with the robber, and some part of him regretted it: he wanted to know what it would have felt like to really hold her back.  Fiff was big on hugging, but there wasn’t much to hug on him: for eleven, he was as short and scrawny as a seven-year-old.  Embracing Gemma now wasn’t a conscious decision but the right one.

            She grabbed at him almost furiously, scratching his coat and squeezing all the air out of him.  Her goal seemed to be to hold him as tightly as possible, and if she reached her goal, everything would end up fine in her world.  After all, if her soul felt out of control, spinning and falling, she could hold onto something solid: a lifeline.

            Melchior let her hold on tight and kneeled down on the floor, so she could lean on him for support.

            “I—I—” she began through body-wracking sobs, but Melchior shushed her.  He instead locked his arms firmly around her waist and petted her tangled hair.

            She didn’t know how long she cried, and wasn’t surprised that she still wasn’t out of tears, and didn’t even notice when Fiff came home in a huff and was promptly shushed  by Melchior as well.

            It must have taken a while, though.


	17. Chapter 17

It was around eight when she finally seemed to run dry, pushing away from the older boy softly and resting on the floor.  Gemma rubbed her eyes and patted down her hair a little self-consciously, but there wasn’t much left in the way of dignity when she’d cried in front of these boys for a few hours.

            Melchior raised an eyebrow at the state of her dress.  “Are you very cold?”

            “N-no.  Just a little s-soggy, I think,” she joked through hiccups.  “I can stand in f-front of the fire and d-dry up.”

            Grunting, Melchior fetched a clean shirt and trousers from his dresser and led Fiff by the hand out of the flat.  “These will be more comfortable for you, I think,” he suggested as he left the clothes on the couch.

            Gemma put them on gratefully as she heard the boys whispering like old biddies outside the flat.

            “What happened to her?  Did she tell you anything?”

            “No, she just came in cryin’!  I’d hoped you’d gotten a confession out of her when you were busy playing ‘Who Can Hug the Hardest?’ all night long--”

            “Fiff!  Take that back!”

            “Okay, fine, I take it back, okay?  But I’m so scared for her!  Something really bad happened to her!  Do you supposed it was that Harry guy?’

            “No…I don’t think that’s it…she’ll tell us in her own good time.”

            She did her best to ignore them; they were only worried for her, anyway.  She checked her reflection in the looking-glass and tried her best to smooth down her wild hair and rub away any mud or tear tracks from her face.

            “Come in,” she called out to them, and they entered innocently.  “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

            “Just one,” Fiff said as he crossed his arms and plopped on the chair next to the desk.  “What happened?”

            Gemma shot a pleading glance at Melchior, but his face was an open book: he wanted to know, too.

            “It’s actually…really silly, I guess,” she said.  “I suppose you could say I had a nervous breakdown.  Or something like it.”

            “What do you mean?” asked Melchior.

            She wasn’t in the mood for a long explanation.  “I realized today that I didn’t want to do it anymore, so I started crying and I couldn’t stop.  I ran right out of the house and kept running for hours.  I even woke up under a tree in Central Park not knowing how I’d gotten there.”

            “ _What?!_ ” both boys screeched.  Melchior continued the interjection: “You woke up under a tree and didn’t know how you got there?”

            “I just got so tired I collapsed.  I don’t think anything bad happened to me, I don’t remember being kidnapped or raped or stolen from.”  They winced at that.  “I just ran from there, too, and I came here.  There wasn’t anywhere else for me to be.”

            “Well, are you all right?” Fiff asked earnestly if not a little impatiently.  “Do you still feel ready to cry?”

            “A little.  But it won’t change anything, so I won’t.  Not until both of you can’t see,” she grinned weakly.  It nearly broke Melchior’s heart.

            “But that doesn’t—you aren’t—ugh!” Fiff yelled in frustration.  “This is awful nonchall—nunchillint—nun—”

            “Nonchalant of her, and yes,” Melchior corrected.  “How about you head off to bed, Fiff?  It’s late, and you’ve had no shortage of drama for the day.”

            “Why do you ALWAYS make me go to bed when I don’t want to?  This isn’t fair!  You always do this!”

            “My flat, my rules, Fiffian,” he chuckled at his new nickname for the boy.  Since he was already acting the parent or brother, he might as well have a full name to yell at him when the little boy disobeyed.  He came up with ‘Fiffian’, and considered it revenge for all the ‘Melchi’ and ‘Melcor’ he’d heard in the past few months.

            Fiff shook his fists in the air and snatched the sheet from its place on the floor.  “Unfair, unfair, unfair,” he grumbled as Melchior tucked him in.  “You older kids are just going to keep talking and I’ll hear everything you say anyway.  If you want me to go to bed to be alone, it won’t work.”

            “You’ll be out like a light.”

            “Not if you start playing ‘Who Can Hug the Hardest?’ again.”

            “F-Fiff!!!” Melchior blustered.  “I mean it!”

            “Yeah, yeah, I get it.  Good night, Melchi, love you.”

            Gemma couldn’t suppress a chuckle.  “I love you, Fiff.”

            “You too, Jim.”

            Fiff snuggled into the covers and then abruptly turned to face the older pair with a mischievous smile on his face.  He wasn’t missing anything juicy, that’s for sure.

           

            Melchior turned from the bed, running a hand nervously through his hair.  Gemma stood stubbornly before him, hands on hips, and he nodded toward the tiny old couch on the other side of the room.  Silently they retreated to it and settled.

            “How are you feeling?” he asked quietly, glad that the crackling of the stove in the corner would make it harder for the snooping Fiff to hear. 

            She sighed.  “Confused above all.  There’s just so much going on in my head now, I can’t even begin to think about it all.”

            “You don’t have to.”

            “Well, then, what would the purpose of this conversation be?”

            Melchior didn’t know what to say to that.  “Socks?”

            “You’re a hopeless conversationalist,” she grinned.  “I’m feeling a lot more like myself now.  Normal, I guess.  But this afternoon, it was so terrible.  It was the end of the world.”

            “What happened?”

            “Nothing.  I was staring at my soup and all hell broke loose.  After that, I couldn’t think about anything.”

            “You mentioned,” he continued, “when we met at the fountain, that there was dark stuff no one wanted to know about your life.”

            “I didn’t mean really dark stuff!” she tried to explain.  “I meant, well, more of my mind.  It was a dark place before I had you two.  It’s still a dark place because I only get to come see you twice a week, and I have to spend the rest of my time there in that prison.”  She shuddered.  “I know you think I’m the poor little rich girl, but it’s a toxic environment, and not at all right for me.  I mean, have you ever genuinely felt like your brain was literally just screaming at you?”

            He made no reply.

            “I suppose you wouldn’t, it is rather strange.  It’s too tense and pressured, I can’t even to begin to describe what living like that is like.  It sounds like I’m being a big baby about all this when I truly feel so…trapped.  There’s no way out for me.”

            “Don’t say that!” he urged, surprising himself by actually voicing an opinion on this subject.  “No matter what happens, in your future, you won’t be alone.  Fiff and I will always be here, even as you grow up.  I’m sure Harry would let you visit people when you’re married.  You could keep this up your entire life if you wanted.”

            “But I don’t want to.  I’m tired, Melchi, it’s too much for me to maintain.  I don’t know how much longer I can deal with this.”

            “Will you go back home?” he asked.

            “I guess I’ll have to, but I told you, I don’t know how long I can keep this up.  One day I won’t just break down, I’ll break for good.  There’ll be no fixing and I won’t be able to get back.”

            “Gemma,” he said seriously, looking her directly in the eye.  “I don’t want you to hear you say such things.  If you say them, it just encourages these things to happen.  The battle’s just in your mind, and once you get over it, everything else will be easy.”

            _Follow your own advice, nightmare boy!_ he screamed at himself.

            She frowned.  “Not that this advice isn’t welcome, but does this perchance come from personal experience?”

            “Not yet, it doesn’t.”

            “Ah.  I won’t ask any further, then.  I know it bothers you.  Do you think I should just run away?” she asked, stretching out her legs and putting them on top of Melchior’s lap so she could settle into her side of the couch.  Melchior looked like she’d placed a white-hot poker in his lap instead.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

            “It’s no trouble,” he said.  “You’ve had a long day.”

            “You look uncomfortable.”

            “Eh, well, you know at least a little about my intimacy issues,” he laughed.

            “Speaking of which, we overcame an obstacle today in those.”

            “More like a mountain,” he said.  “And no, you shouldn’t run away.  I’m not sure what good it would do you.”

            “So what do I do?” she asked, grey eyes huge.

            “Erm…” he began, trying to focus on speech and not on how desperate her eyes looked for a real answer.  “We have to wait and see.  You got over a breakdown today, and you can return home.  We can pretend it never happened.”

            “I’d like that.  Except…” she said, biting her lip in embarrassment.

            “Is something wrong?”

            She looked down and took a deep breath before whispering: “Can I sleep here tonight?”

            “What?”  
            “I won’t be any trouble,” she offered.  “I’ll sleep on the floor.  I just…don’t think I can go home just yet.  I need time to think for tonight, about everything.”

            Melchior choked a little before continuing.  It was hard to argue with her about something so serious.  “It’s not that, you’re no trouble, it’s just that...well, apparently you’ve no sense of propriety.”

            “Have I ever?”

            “Beside the point.  You’re welcome to stay here for the night, if you really want to,” he decided, trying to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal.  But it was: her parents probably didn’t know where she was, and Melchior had a feeling his head would roll for this.  Still, it was hard to argue with her.

            Gemma’s eyes grew exponentially bigger in something a little near joy.  “Thank you,” she breathed, and for a terrifying moment Melchior was sure that she was going to kiss him on the cheek, but she opted to squeeze his hand and set up on the floor.

            “There’s no need for that.  Fiff’s been awake the whole time and I’m kicking him out of the bed,” Melchior reasoned.  “The lady shouldn’t be forced to sleep on the floor.”

            “No fair!” Fiff grumbled as he threw off the blankets.  “I was just getting settled.  You two are awfully boring to listen to!”  
            “No, no, no, you go back to bed.  I’m already intruding,” Gemma insisted.  “I wasn’t going to sleep yet anyway.”

            Fiff huffed heavily and flopped back onto the bed.  “Good.  NIGHT.”

            The older pair laughed and Gemma sat watching the stove burn for a few minutes, her gaze never wavering.  Melchior watched her from the couch, smiling with her as her expression changed from a dreamy smile to a scowl and back to a smile.  While she was lost in thought, Melchior was struck by inspiration.     

            “Here,” he said when he sat down next to her, offering her a parcel.

            She smiled softly and looked up at him.  “What is this?”

            “I was going to give it to you on Christmas, but this seems like a better time,” he explained.  “I figured it was a good day for an early Christmas present.”

            “You got that right,” she said, and she tore off the brown paper wrapping to reveal a new book, glossy and fresh off the printing presses.

            “It’s _A Christmas Carol_ ,” he explained before she could even properly look at the title.  “One of Dickens’ greats, I’ve heard.  It’s been out for a while, and I didn’t know if you already had it, but I saw it and—”

            “Shhhh,” she said, cracking open the stiff spine of the novel.  “I’m reading my new book.”

            Melchior laughed and went back to the couch, taking a crack at some new words from his worn out dictionary.

            “Melchior?” she asked after a few minutes.

            “Yes?”

            “Thank you.  It’s perfect.”

            “You’re welcome.”

            “I don’t have anything for you, though.  I didn’t even have an idea of what to get you both for Christmas, and I wasn’t expecting anything back.”

            “It’s completely fine.”

            “No, it’s not!  I wish I had something for you to thank you for helping me…with everything.”

            “Don’t worry about it.”

            “But I do!  I just wish I had something to give you.”

            “You give us enough,” Melchior said in an odd voice, and then he revised his tone as he revealed the truth: “I mean, me.  You give _me_ enough.”


	18. Chapter 18

He was infuriating.

            His default mode was detached and cool, but when he wanted to argue with her, he could: jaw tightening, eyes ablaze.  Demon-like, terrifying, and powerful.

            He could be superior and act haughty to the ends of the earth, assured of his status as the better writer, the more mature person, the smarter of the two.  He could choose to smirk and roll his eyes and tilt his head until she wasn’t sure who was right anymore.  

            He could be wonderful.  There were moments where he looked at Fiff with such admiration and love in his eyes, as if he couldn’t believe a person like that could exist.  His nose would wrinkle when they called him his nickname, he’d patiently coach the both of them in their writing. 

            There were even times when he was more than anything Gemma could ever hope for, even in the strangest of moments.  Just when she caught him looking at her, on random days, and their eyes caught on each other.  Two precious seconds of uninterrupted eye contact reassured her of everything and left her head reeling.

            She liked him.

            That much was obvious.  She lit up like a firefly when he was around.  So what now?

            Gemma glanced at him from the corner of her eye: he was facing away from her on the couch but left his hand dangling over the arm, just begging for her to reach out and take it.  She blushed furiously at this thought and practically pushed her face into her book, the book _he_ had bought her for Christmas. 

            He’d bought her a book.  Oh, did she like him!

            But that was the problem.  She was sure, absolutely sure, that she did not just appreciate Melchior as a friend.  She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized it before, when they were working together.  She couldn’t believe she hadn’t picked up on it when she first met him, drenched in street water and ink but still attracted, ever so attracted, to him.

            She certainly liked him.  But what now?

            Gemma didn’t want to think of Harry, in fact, she shunned all thoughts of Harry Madison and their impending engagement.  After all, there had been no proposal.  The entire thing could fall through and she could run away. 

            But she couldn’t think farther that that.  Perhaps she could convince the boys to go with her.  They could all relax on an island beach.  She could wear dresses or trousers or coconuts if she wanted, and they could write all the time.  Fiff could run on the beaches and chase pelicans, and maybe Melchior would tell her more about his past.

            Maybe one day he’d think about it and realize how much she liked him and want to talk about it.  She couldn’t wait for that day.

            “Are you sure,” she began, “that you won’t be coming to Mary’s coming-out party?”

            “Hmm?” he asked sleepily from the couch.  “Oh, the party?  Well.”

            “Well?”

            “I…well,” he chuckled nervously.  “I suppose I could…be persuaded.”

            Gemma could have fainted right there.  “Persuaded?”

            “We’ll see.  Did you tire of Dickens so quickly?”

            “What?  Oh, n-no, I was just, erm, asking.”

           

            Surprisingly, she actually hadn’t read _A Christmas Carol_.  That was one of the greatest parts of the gift, but she was sure as she got into the meat of the short novel that was just as fabulous and touching as her favorites.  Old Scrooge was quite the unlikely protagonist, which she loved, and the plotline was so different.  She sped through the book in about an hour and then went back and reread it, focusing on every little detail of the book.

            She, of course, spared a few glimpses towards the boys: Fiff had curled into a cute little ball on the bed, nearly invisible under the blanket clump.  Even Melchior had fallen asleep about an hour ago, dropping his dictionary on the floor.  Gemma had been obliged to pick it up and put it with his other books, taking a while to look at all of his books.  They were stacked, after all, everywhere and on everything.

            Gemma genuinely loved his flat, despite his disbelief: she didn’t care how shabby the furniture was or how cold it could get, and loved the way he kept the place.  She even thought it was cute that he kept her yellowing article on the wall, even though he’d changed his excuse from ‘I keep it to get angry at the competition’ to ‘You’re over here all the time, we might as well put your grand victory up on the wall’.

            She put her book with her now-dry dress and petticoats to take with her tomorrow and started to pick up papers from the ground.  They littered the place like snow, and each one had something interesting on them.  She noticed some were written in German and some in English, and some even in strange shorthand he used for notes.  He even had sketched on some papers.

            One particular paper had a beautiful portrait on it: a young girl with dark, curly hair and a sweet smile.  Part of her wanted to ask him about his apparent artistic ability, but most of her was jealous that he’d taken the time to draw such a pretty girl.  She put it from her mind, though, assuring herself that the girl had to have been only a little older than Fiff and probably Melchior’s sister back in Germany. 

            “Hmmm…” Melchior grumbled in his sleep.  Gemma threw the sketch down in surprise, but he just turned over on his side.

           

            If Melchior could have picked a day to control the things he dreamed, this was the obvious choice.  He was embarrassed the various times people had been awoken by his cries, especially his episodes with Fiff.  Fiff, true to his word, always shook him awake and comforted him as best he could when they were over, despite his fear.  Each nightmare made the little boy more and more nervous for his guardian.

            But it was still something he trusted Fiff with: not to judge him or be too scared, and certainly never to reveal it to Gemma.  But Fiff couldn’t help him now, and his humiliation was laid bare.

            _She is lying on the cold metal table, clutching at her stomach in terror.  Her wild eyes search the room for a friendly face or a savior, but her mother is out of sight.  Melchior is standing before her, wielding a surgical knife._

_“Melchi!” she pleads.  “It’s our baby!  What are you doing?”_

“I don’t know,” Melchior mumbled in his sleep, turning quickly from one side to the other.  Gemma immediately noticed his discomfort and drew closer to him, eyes widening in confusion as he kept up with his tossing and turning.

 

_He tries to let go of the tool in his hand and throw it on the floor, gather her in his arms and carry her to freedom._

_She twists and turns on the operating table in fear, trying to reach out to him.  “Don’t do it, Melchi.  You’ll kill us both.  You’ll kill all three of us!”_

“I already have,” he moaned, pushing off the couch and arching away from the cushions.  “I already have.”

Something told Gemma that she should be scared, but she kept drawing closer, reaching a tentative hand out to the boy.  He was obviously having a bad dream…he wouldn’t be terribly angry if she tried to wake him up.  Right?

 

_He raises the knife, taking measured steps toward her.  The girl he loves.  The girl he is going to kill._

_Before he can proceed, the scene switches to the meadow, where the entire village has gathered.  They carry flaming torches and encroach slowly upon Melchior and Wendla, who is lying unconscious on the ground._

“Wendla!”

            Gemma stepped back at this yell, gasping a little.  Something was wrong, and she pushed past her confusion and ran to his side, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

            “Melchior, wake up,” she commanded.  “You’re having a bad dream!”

           

_Moritz runs through the mob to Wendla’s side, removing a baby from somewhere inside her and handing it to Melchior.  “It’s yours now,” he hisses, picking the girl up and carrying her through the village people._

“M-Moritz!” he screamed, making Gemma wince and shake his shoulders.  It was as if he was in pain, and he squirmed under her hold and pushed against her, shaking violently.

            “Melchior, get up!  You’re dreaming!” she said shakily, voice raising a hair.  It was a miracle Fiff was asleep at this!

 

_The baby screams and squirms in his arms, and he desperately tries to quiet it as he keeps his eyes on his two friends, retreating into the masses.  Moritz looks back and grins evilly as he places Wendla in a grave on the top of the hill, and with a triumphant nod, he removes his head and lobs it at Melchior before disappearing into his own adjacent grave._

“NO!” he roared, actually shaking Gemma off his body and smacking wildly at the air.

            She cried out in utter terror: Melchior was surely possessed.  Something was terribly wrong with him, something evil, and she was all alone to deal with it.

            But Gemma wasn’t going to let this get to her; Melchior was in trouble like she had been, and it was her job to help him.  She pounced on the couch and restrained him, pinning his arms by locking hers around his chest from behind and whispering quickly into his ear.  “You’re okay,” she promised as he continued to thrash.  “Melchior, wake up.  It isn’t real.  Something’s wrong with you, just wake up, and you’ll be fine.  You’re okay.  We’re okay.  Everything’s okay.”

            He didn’t scream further but continued to resist her hold, and she uselessly called out to Fiff.  It occurred to her that he might be having a seizure, but she still didn’t know what to do about it.

           

            _He abandons the child on the meadow ground and pushes through the crowd to the two graves, throwing himself into Wendla’s and finding himself face to face with her corpse._

_Darkness and warmth close around him, and he is sure he is being buried alive until he realizes that the dream has changed to the hayloft._

_Wendla is before him in her blue spring dress, intoxicating him with her brown eyes.  She looks every inch a temptress, even at fourteen.  Melchior is simultaneously terrified by her and aroused, in a way.  How often his dreams come here, with the girl he is meant to be with.  Kissing her once more is his guilty pleasure._

_Wendla almost attacks him in her impatience, and as they embrace, the hayloft switches back to the inside of a grave, and the lovers are six feet under._

Gemma wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened, but Melchior continued to thrash and shake in front of her and she held him all the harder, still whispering.  “I’ve got you.  Now just wake up.  Wake up, and we’ll take care of each other.”  She was embarrassed to say these things out loud, but at least he couldn’t hear her.

            Melchior began to grab at her arms and hold them tightly to him as a drowning man would a lifeline.  Every time Gemma thought he couldn’t possibly hold her arms any tighter, he’d regrab and press them to his chest all the closer.

            “Melchior?” she asked in a strange voice; it sounded like it came from a different person, not her, for at that moment Melchior kissed her forearm and followed it with a thousand other kisses, working his way up her arm until he reached her shoulder and finally woke up. 

            He was completely shocked and confused, seeing someone holding him from behind, but in the low light of the room and the lingering emotions of the nightmare he could only respond in one way.

            Melchior turned around quickly and faced Gemma with wide eyes, his head only an inch away from hers.  “G-Gemma?” he asked breathlessly.

            She nodded in response, huge grey eyes boring into his, and he grabbed her by the shoulders and started kissing her everywhere he could reach.

            Gemma squeaked as he pressed a firm kiss to her jaw, feeling absolutely covered by him.  He was everywhere: there wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t being held or kissed by Melchior Gabor, except for her lips.  Her lips he avoided.

Mostly she felt shock as he continued to pull her to him and kiss his way down her neck, going numb in his arms. 

            Melchior was completely unrestrained, and in his passion he actually rolled the pair off the couch and onto the floor, where he resumed by pulling away at her shirt with his teeth and kissing her collarbone.  She made no sound but a slight cry as her head thumped on the floor.  He put his hands on her waist to continue to pull her body closer to his, peppering her shoulder with kisses until he could feel his lips on fire.  He couldn’t think clearly at all; this was merely a continuation of his dream in real life.  All the wanting he’d felt in the darker parts of his nightmares was released in this moment, and he’d never wanted anything more than her, on this floor, right now.

            She put a hand on his shoulder, not pushing him off but not clutching it.

            “M-Mel-Melchior?” she said breathlessly, sounding a little frightened. 

            He stopped, and in doing so, his senses returned to him.

           

            This was _Gemma_.  This wasn’t some dream where he could relive his afternoon in the hayloft with Wendla, this was a living, breathing person he cared about.  This was his friend.

            He’d forgotten.

 

            “Gemma,” he breathed, still hovering over her, but looking at her confused face knocked him out of his passionate reverie quickly.  He threw himself off her and onto the floor yards away, as if backing away from an injured wild animal. 

            She sat up quickly, not bothering to put her clothes in disarray to rights.  She simply stared at him from across the room, her face a rapture of shock, confusion, fear, and the tiniest bit of delight.

            “I—I’m so sorry,” he said.  “I’m sorry.  I forgot myself, I—” He put his head in his hands.  “It was a mistake.  I didn’t mean to scare you or hurt you, I just—”

            She crawled across the room to put a hand on his shoulder in comfort, but he shoved it off and stood up.  “I have to go,” he excused himself, running out of the flat without a backwards glance.


	19. Chapter 19

Gemma kept tugging at her hat subconsciously, surveying the Red Fish.  After its reopening, their regular meeting place and time had been reestablished, but she wasn’t sure if anyone here might recognize her. 

            Patrick had given her a new coat and hat at her request, and as long as she kept to herself, no one here would notice.  Still, she felt the need to relocate.

            The door jangled open, and her face brightened immediately as Fiff entered with a regular smile on his face.  Her own smile faded a few degrees when she saw that he entered alone.

            Still, stiff upper lip.  “Fiff, it’s so good to see you again!” she said cheerily after an obligatory greeting hug.  “Things at the house are still terrible, but definitely more manageable.  Especially now we can come back to the Red Fish.”

            “That’s wonderful,” Fiff said, trying to catch her eye as she kept glancing at the door.  “Um, Jimmy?”

            “Yes?”

            “He’s not coming.”

            “Oh.”

            They sat down next to each other, now feeling a little more awkward without the third person of their trio.  “He’s too busy being a moron, I suppose,” Fiff tried to lighten the mood, but Gemma was clearly distraught.  She began to tear up a piece of paper in her hand. 

            “Yes, I suppose so.  How have you been since my…little episode?”

            “Pretty bored,” he admitted.  “Melchior was missing that morning, and you skedaddled out of there pretty quickly.  And the past few days, he’s been moping around the house.  He won’t even bother teaching me letters or going places wiv me.”

            “He must be getting bad,” she said, trying to fake concern where she felt only guilt and embarrassment.  “With his past, and stuff.  Have you tried talking about it?”

            “I have, and here’s the funny thing: I don’t think it’s his past.  I think something must have happened to make him angry or depressed, right recently, too.  Know anything about it?” he asked pointedly. 

            “Mmm-mmm,” she answered in the negative.

            “See, that’s even funnier, because every time I mention you he comes up with an excuse to leave.”

            Fiff was fixing an accusing stare at her, knowing that she hadn’t done anything purposely wrong but unable to soften his gaze.  She looked miserable at the entire situation.

            “I don’t know, Fiff,” she said.  “I think we might have ruined it.”

            “It?”

            “Everything.  Our friendship.  I just feel like I don’t know anything at all, about anything.  I’m in the dark.  And I didn’t do anything wrong.  At least, I don’t think I did…”

            “That makes complete sense.”

            “I can’t tell you about it,” she tried to explain.  “Just, a few nights ago, that night I came crying, something got going.  And I think it ruined everything for us, and he refuses to see me.”

            “Do you want to know what I think?”

            “Of course.”

            “First, I think you’re both complete idiots and I’m never growing up, ever.”

            She laughed at that.  “Why aren’t you going to grow up?”

            “Too messy.  Second, you somehow hurt each other’s feelings or something.  I don’t see why you two don’t talk it out.”

            “I can’t talk it out,” she seethed, “if he’s avoiding me.”

            “Right enough, then.  Let’s talk about something else,” he said.  “I’m real excited for the coming-out party.  Have you got it organized?”

            “Yes.  In fact, I brought your clothes today.  You’re to put them on,” she instructed, “at five on the 19th.  Then you’re to walk over to the party, and I’ll come find you.”

            “Will you be wearing a pretty dress, like you did a few days ago?”

            “Not all muddy this time, Fiff.  I should look as nice as Wilhelmina can force me to be.”   

            “I can’t wait to see it.  Stupid Melchior’s the only one who’s seen ya in your fine stuff.”

            Her face fell at his name again, and Fiff accidentally revealed another piece of information he’d meant to tell her when she was feeling better: “He’s not goin’ to the party, though.”

            “I think I already knew that,” she said sadly.  “But I’m really glad you’ll be there.  If you behave, you can even come to my coming-out party this June.”

            “And if I don’t behave?”

            “I guess you can come anyway,” she said.  “But you’ll have to bring _him_ with you so I can slap him in front of the whole assembly.”

            “I’ll tell him you said that.  You know, if he doesn’t run out of the room when I mention your name.”

 

            Melchior Gabor did not deserve to live.

            At least, he thought so.  Only he could take what made him happy and what he cared about and ruin it, for certain, every chance he got.  Loving family? He’d shamed them and been kicked out.  Best friend?  Inadvertently murdered him.  Lover?  Inadvertently murdered her.  New friend?  Not only frightened her away with a nightmare but then _came onto her_ and ran away after embarrassing himself every possible way.  It was only a matter of time before Fiff would leave him, too, and he’d be truly alone.

            He couldn’t believe what he’d done, he truly didn’t.  Melchior’s nightmare had been so vivid that it had left him wild-eyed and bewildered form the second he woke up, feeling so empty that when he’d turned around to see Gemma there, he’d lost it.

            She’d been holding him, _protecting_ him, and he wasn’t truly thinking when he’d started to kiss her.  All he’d seen were those starlight-grey eyes, widening in shock, and he’d felt himself fall into her.  Melchior hadn’t kissed anyone since the hayloft afternoon. 

            And of course, he’d gotten caught up in it all and didn’t even care, just like he hadn’t cared initially when Wendla had tried to stop him.  But hearing Gemma so scared and confused—though he know she knew what he was going to attempt—froze him and brought him back.  And coming back form that meant shame.

            She would have forgiven him if he’d stayed and tried to explain himself.  Gemma was a good person.  But he couldn’t do that.  He couldn’t even speak of her, because once again, he’d tried to violate something pure and unsuspecting.  He didn’t deserve to live.

            Did he?

            “She’s real upset,” Fiff told him when he came home.  “Real upset.  I think you know why.”

            Melchior got up to leave.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “Why are you being so dumb about all this?  You really hurt her feelings when that’s the last thing she needs.”

            “You don’t understand, Fiff,” he said.  “I’ll—I’ll talk to her when I’m ready, all right?”  And with that, he walked out of the flat again.

 

            So he’d talk to her when he was ready.  When would that be?

            He had to be honest with himself: it had only been five days since he’d seen her, but he missed her more than he could imagine.  Melchior often spent time at night looking out his window, wondering if she was all right or if she’d had another bad day.

            It was simple, then.  He couldn’t go on not seeing her, so he had to see her again.  Preferably soon.

            He knew just the place.  He’d intended to go since she last came over.  He just needed a means to get there.

            And he knew just the place: the New York Times office.

           

            “Melchior Gabor,” Mr. Howard said, not looking up from his desk.  “What can I do for you?  You’re not due in the office for another week.”

            “I know, sir, but I was wondering,” Melchior said with a slight grin, “if you could do me a favor.”


	20. Chapter 20

“I’m afraid you’re not on the guest list,” a very confused doorman said to the little boy standing before him.  “There’s no Philip Martin on my list, sir.  I’d get on my way if I were you.”

            Fiff was not to be turned away: this place was a jungle, and Jimmy was inside.  He looked straight up at the adolescent doorman with a condescending stare that would have made Wilhelmina proud.  “I’d check again if I were you,” he said carefully, using the measure tones Jimmy had taught him to use.  “My parents are already inside.  Perhaps you’ve admitted them yourself?  Mrs. Martin, is, after all a sister of Miss Keeper’s mother.”

            The doorman looked at Fiff’s slicked back blond hair, crystalline blue eyes, and exquisite child suit.  He certainly looked every inch one of the gentry.

            “Phil!” someone cried affectionately from inside.  “You’ve arrived!  I was getting worried.”  Mary’s younger sister, Gemma, walked up the door and ushered the little boy in. 

            The doorman was left standing in the doorway, bewildered as ever. 

            “Thank goodness you got here,” Gemma said as they descended into the ballroom.  Fiff couldn’t answer as soon as he entered, gaping at the different sights to see.  The giant room was decorated with elaborate high ceilings covered in cherubs and chandeliers dripping light, and people were everywhere.  Thousands of couples seemed to be dancing, with Mary in the center in her fine white dress, laughing through the waltz.  It had to have been Mary: he’d never seen her, but she looked just as Gemma had described and was in the center of the dance. 

            “It’s quite a party,” she conceded to his thoughts.  “Just remember you’re a young cousin and act rich.  They’ll never know, and they won’t bother to ask.”

            Fiff didn’t leave her side, making her laugh for the first hour of the party with his descriptions of the floofy dresses some wore.  All the while he was content: content to be with her, obviously happier that he was with her, and content to be at such a gathering.  He’d never seen so much finery and color in his life.  It was a most inspirational picture.

            Speaking of inspirational pictures, Gemma was one if he ever saw one: her hair was pinned up and strewn with pearls, set back with an elaborate comb that he guessed cost a month of Melchior’s salary.  She was wearing some light purple-blue color in a style of dress he was sure was all the rage, as many other women wore similar designs.

            She looked like a dream.  “Would you do me the honor,” he asked with a smile, “of dancing wiv me, Miss Keeper?”

            Gemma feigned surprise.  “Mr. Fiff, it would be my utmost pleasure!” she said, pulling him to the floor and dancing gaily around the floor with him.  Her mother watched sternly from an embellished chaise, scrutinizing the boy to spark recognition.  A cousin of a cousin, perhaps?  The son of a rich lawyer attending the party?  Surely it didn’t matter, but Harry was dancing with another lady.  Gemma had better get a move on.

            “This is hard!” Fiff exclaimed as he continually trod on her toes, but he jovially kept kicking his legs out with as much enthusiasm as he could pump out.

            “That’s why we hire instructors to make it perfect!” she laughed in reply.  “It took me two years to get the waltz, and I’m still awful at it.”

            “That’s debatable,” an easy voice interrupted, and Fiff looked up from his dance with Gemma to see a good-looking young man in a finely-pressed suit.  “Miss Gemma,” he said with a bow.

            “Mr. Harry,” she returned with a slight curtsy.  “Harry, this is our cousin, Philip Martin.”

            “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Philip,” he said with a grin, firmly shaking Fiff’s hand.  “I’ve never seen you around these functions before.  I suppose your parents decided it was time to let you go to a party once in a while?”

            “You could say that,” Fiff replied.  “This is a marvelous party.”

            “Only the best for little Marny, eh, Gem?  She does have some extravagant tastes,” Harry said.  “I doubt Gemma will want as much for her party.”

            “That all has yet to be decided,” she said.  “Who was that you were just dancing with?”

            “Oh, her?” he asked, looking out on the ballroom.  “Miranda Houghton, daughter of a shipping magnate.  Perhaps you know her?  She’s a year younger than you, but a delightful girl!”

            “No, I’m afraid I’ve not yet met her.”

            “Then I must introduce you,” he concluded, pulling her by the hand.  “I think you’ll like her, Gemkat.  She’s not at all like the stuffy types, and she’s very funny.”

            “I can’t!” she said urgently.  “I have to stay with Fiff—I mean, Philip.”

            “He can be on his own for a few minutes, can’t you, Philip?” he asked.  “At the very least, Gemma, I must have you dance.  You can say how dreadful you are at waltzing, but it’ll be fun, and I can’t imagine having a better time dancing with anyone but you.”

            Gemma stammered out a few arguments, but none of them were coherent enough to be interpreted as a ‘no’.  Harry swept her onto the floor and placed his feet in the correct position to start the dance.

            “Harry, please—that is, I don’t think I can—I don’t think we should—”

            “What the lady means to suggest,” a voice called from behind Harry, “is that she has already promised this next dance to me.”

            Harry whirled around to face another young man, looking a little sternly but politely at the couple.  Gemma swayed a little in his arms and made a small choking sound as the young man made a slight bow.

            “Oh, I’m very sorry, Mr.—um—” he began as the boy cut him off.

            “Howard.  Reginald Howard,” he introduced himself. 

            “Reginald Howard?  The name sounds familiar; in fact, you look familiar,” Harry said, disconcerted at not remembering where he had seen the young man before.

            “We’ve never met.  My father, Norman, is the editor-in-chief and owner of the New York Times.”

            “Well, I’m afraid I’m not much of a newspaper reader, but it’s wonderful to meet you,” he said, shaking his hand and committing the boy’s sandy curls and hazel eyes to memory.  “I didn’t mean to cut in on your dance, Mr. Howard.”  He stepped aside as Reginald placed his hands on Gemma’s waist.  “I’ll see you later, Miss Keeper.  Oh, and Mr. Howard?  Nice suit.”

            The young man nodded as he began to twirl Gemma along in the dance, getting quickly lost in the melee of silk and ruffles.

           

            “He seems just as charming as usual,” Melchior whispered into Gemma’s ear, keeping an eye on Harry as he went back to his original partner.  “But you might want to work on forming actual words when he’s around.”

            “M—meh—meh—muh—” was all Gemma could manage to say, barely focusing on making her feet move where they were supposed to.  Miraculously but not without great effort, Melchior kept the couple in line with the other dances, though it was clear he had no idea how to waltz.

            Still, he smiled down at Gemma, who was still choking on her words.  “You look wonderful.  Surprised to see me?”

            “Y—ye—meh—uh?”

            “Maybe you should sit down.  You’ve lost all powers of intelligent speech.”

            “ _Melchior!_ ”

            “Practically a cavewoman.”

            “Melchior!” she hissed, now focusing on getting them through the dancing partners.  “I—I just can’t—believe you came!  How did you get in?”

            “Your maid, Annie, is a lovely girl.  Great memory, too.”

            “And how’d you get the suit?”

            “Called in a favor from Mr. Howard,” he said, looking down proudly at the shining silk fabric.  He looked very nice, and he knew it.  Mr. Howard had given him the address of his personal tailor.  “But it’s a rental.  I only get to wear it for my Cinderella night here.”

            “But you—I—this is—I don’t believe this!” she laughed.  “I thought for sure you’d never come!  I thought you were avoiding me.”

            “Oh, I was.  I am.  In fact, I’m not going to talk to you anymore.”

            “But—”

            “Shhh.”

            Gemma glared at him as he jokingly avoided her gaze, looking up innocently at the ceiling and around them.  Still, she couldn’t believe he was here, talking to her easily as if nothing had happened, dancing with her in front of all New York’s high society…looking unbelievably handsome in a suit.

            All she’d seen him in was in white dress shirts and trousers.  It was a nice change, that’s all it was.

            She waited until they were sufficiently shielded from people she knew by the dancers and pressed her cheek against his chest, almost purring in contentment.  Melchior’s eyes grew wide at the impropriety (and embarrassment of remembering his last experience with her), but he continued to dance. 

            Speaking of the experience, it was time to apologize.

            “I’m sorry,” he whispered.  “Truly sorry.  About what I did that night.  I wasn’t thinking, I really wasn’t.”

            She didn’t respond.

            “I didn’t mean to hurt you or scare you.  It was more of a—spur of the moment thing.”

            “You didn’t hurt me,” she said softly.  “Or scare me.  Well, maybe a little.  I was just confused.  I mean, you’ve never—we’ve never, that is—I mean, you—”

            “There’s the stuttering again.”

            “I just don’t know how to put it into words.  I wasn’t expecting for you to ever…kiss me.”  She blushed.  He’d done a little more than just kiss her, after all.

            He sighed deeply.  “I don’t think I was expecting to, either.”

            “Do you—”   

            “ _Melchi_!”  Fiff yelled, catching sight of them and running over.  “What are you doing here?  You told me you weren’t comin’, you moron!”  
            “Fiff, you can’t call me Melchior here,” he said, breaking away from Gemma and the waltz.  “I’m Reginald Howard, son of Mr. Howard, okay?”

            “I don’t care!” he said, embracing his two best friends.  “We sure do cut a fine figure, though.  Look at us in our tuxes, and Jimmy in her dress.  Don’t she look absolutely stunning, Melchior Gabor?”

            “Yes, she does,” he said with a pointed look down and up Gemma’s dress, which was not exactly appropriate, but it certainly made her squirm.

            They spent time making fun of some of the uglier dresses, getting something to eat, and generally making each other laugh.  Every minute with them, Gemma’s eyes increased in sparkle, and she couldn’t believe that she was actually having fun at a social function like this.  Fiff constantly made her giggle like a child, and Melchior would lean over and whisper something more clever in her ear so she’d laugh and feel her neck tingling at the same time. 

            She should be a lot angrier with him.  If you thought about it, he’d almost deflowered her and ruined her reputation, but honestly she didn’t see it that way.  She _knew_ that Melchior hadn’t known what he was doing at the time…well, he’d known _what_ he was doing, but he didn’t realize it.  In any waking hour, not gripped by some horrible nightmare he had yet to explain, he would never do something like that.

            Plus, she’d missed him all the more after realizing her feelings for him, which she was still sorting through.  In fact, when Harry picked her up for a few dances, she spent most of the silence of those dances to consider her feelings about Melchior.  She didn’t get any closer to figuring them out.

            Harry tried to make conversation with her, about anything, really, but got an expected little out of her.  He didn’t want to abandon her on the floor, but she really wasn’t making things any easier for him.

            “He looks immensely frustrated at your frequent conversation with Reginald Howard,” Melchior commented on this when they met up at the punch bowl.

            “Oh, Miranda can keep him company if she’s so funny.  I’m starting to get bored with this whole thing,” she yawned.  “Everyone glances over at us.  It’s getting a little scandalous that I keep coming over to talk to you two.”

            “Could Annie make an excuse for us to leave?” Fiff asked, a little tired of the stuffiness of the satin ratio.

            “I don’t want to burden her tonight, she’s done too much for me already,” she said.

            Fiff would have urged her to find a way for the three of them to be alone, but at that moment, John Keeper, Jr. entered the conversation.

            “Hi, sis,” he said.  “Who’re the gents?”

            “Jacky, these are Mr. Reginald Howard and our cousin, Mr. Philip Martin.”

            “Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking hands with Melchior and staring happily at Fiff.  “I didn’t know I had a boy cousin my age.  How old are you?”

            “Eleven,” Fiff answered, puffing out his chest to appear larger.  “And you?”

            “I’m twelve.  You can call me Jacky if you want.  My dad’s name is John, too, so family calls me Jacky.”

            “Okay, Jacky.”

            Inspiration struck John Keeper, Jr.  “Hey, do you want to see my slingshot?  I got it for my birthday last year!”

            “A slingshot!  What do you shoot with it?”  
            “Targets I set up in my room, when Mother’s not looking.  Come on, I’ll let you try it out,” he said, leading an excited Fiff away.  The boys had finally found a source of boyish mischievous trouble, and it was bound to be glorious.

            “Amazing,” Gemma said, shaking her head.  “I can’t believe I didn’t see that friendship coming.  All right, I’m going to change shoes.  Heels kill me, and Harry’s coming after me for a quadrille.”

            “Let’s get out of here,” Melchior agreed, following her out of the ballroom and up the staircase.

 

            Very little about Gemma’s room represented her taste, and Melchior made use of his time observing it while Gemma rummaged through shoe boxes for a pair of slippers or flats.  Both of them were hyperaware that it was very scandalous for him to be in her bedroom, but Gemma had been afraid to leave him alone with her mother free to interrogate him, even if Melchior would have held up under questioning.

            Things in her room were delicate and creamy, almost painfully placed to give the room a very ladylike, Victorian look.  Melchior looked for books or posters or papers to show a touch of Gemma, but they must have been hidden somewhere.  Still, _A Christmas Carol_ was on her nightstand. 

            “He hasn’t proposed yet?” he asked.

            “Harry?  N-no,” she said.  “But we expect it any day.  Well, they expect it, and I think of a way to get out of it.  Do you think he liked that Miranda girl?  Maybe I could say something about that to my father.”

            “Maybe,” he agreed.

            She slipped on a pair of silver flats and began to exit with a triumphant grin when Melchior called out to her.

            “Don’t go just yet,” he pleaded.  “Sit with me?”

            Gemma restrained herself from tripping over her feet to get there, trying to maintain some composure.  She wasn’t sure what was coming, but she knew it would be wonderful—and nerve-wracking.

            They settled on the window seat, not taking their eyes off each other when the lamp Gemma had lit when they’d entered fizzled out.  Melchior fiddled with the hem of her floaty dress before he spoke.

            “I’m truly sorry,” he said.  “For everything.”

            “You know I already forgive you.”

            “Say it, then?”

            “I forgive you,” she said fervently, looking through her lashes at him.  Melchior lost his train of thought: was she doing that on purpose?  Was she trying to look…flirty?  “I want to know what was wrong with you.  What you were dreaming.”

            Instead of wincing, he unconsciously moved closer in the moonlight.  “I’m not sure I want to tell you.  It’s Melchior’s Secret Past Territory.  Can we just leave it alone with the confession that I get pretty awful nightmares about it?”

            “If you want to.”

            Melchior didn’t reply, instead gazing at her intently.  It was his way of trying to figure her out, and they’d never had trouble with just looking at each other.  Very tentatively, he put a hand to her cheek and pushed a nonexistent piece of hair from her face.  She clasped his other hand, in his lap, almost encouraging him to move in a few inches closer and get rid of the gap between their lips.

            “Beautiful,” he murmured.

            “What is?”

            “You.  You’re beautiful, Gemma Keeper.”

            “Not too bad, yourself.”

            His head was whirling, because he didn’t know how he felt.  He’d just called her beautiful, and he meant it with every fiber of his being.  She was a queen, looking just as beautiful on the outside as she’d shown herself to be on the inside.  Beautiful, infuriating, stubborn, argumentative, self-righteous, uncontrollable, naïve, perfect, beautiful Gemma. 

            _STOP!_ His mind raged.  _Are you forgetting yourself?  Are you forgetting Wendla?_

He leaned in closer, knowing he was going to kiss her, but he let himself think one final thought before sealing everything off with a first kiss.

 

            _Wendla who?_

            “GEMMA!” an adult woman’s voice called up the stairs, breaking her away from the electric moment.  Melchior sighed as soon as she turned her head away, resisting the urge to snap his fingers at being defeated in his attempt to kiss her.

            _Probably for the best.  I need to think about things.  About everything._

            “Gemma, come down at once!  Your father is giving a toast!”

            “Coming, Mother!” she said, rushing to the door before turning back.  She shuffled her feet a little nervously.  “Aren’t you coming, too, Melchi?”

            “Of course.”


	21. Chapter 21

            The evening had been magic by anyone’s standards.  The coming-out party was the talk of the town all through Christmas.

            Melchior and Fiff talked about the party all through Christmas as well, reminiscing on their Cinderella night and congratulating themselves, because they knew it had been them that had made the night a good one for their friend.

            And then Christmas was over.

            And Melchior and Fiff knew she had functions and parties to attend to, but then New Year’s Eve came and went, and they hadn’t heard anything from her. Fiff was sure that this was just a busier holiday for her, but Melchior grew more anxious every day.

            Was it her turn to avoid him?

           

            He’d moved the couch for two reasons: first, its previous position reminded him too much of his embarrassment; and second, it was now under his window so he could look at the stars and rewind himself back to the moment on the window seat.

            It was a lot colder under the window, but he really couldn’t sleep, now. After all, there was too much to think about.

            Gemma.

            Wendla.

            The memory of his dead lover was a constant shadow on his head, and Gemma’s presence had always brought a twinge of guilt but also a new distraction: she was a girl, she was his friend, and he’d succeeded in not killing her. Now, with these new feelings (were they really new?), Wendla’s ghost seemed to scream at him from the sky.

            _I was supposed to be yours._

_And I’m not here._

_You don’t get anyone else if you ruined your chance with me._

The real Wendla was too kind and sweet to ever say such a thing, but the real Wendla was dead.  Was he disrespecting her by going after Gemma?  Was five years an appropriate amount of time to grieve, or was the sentence for a killer like him to never get over Wendla?

            He’d never allowed himself to feel anything for any other human being since Wendla and Moritz, but Fiff and Gemma had weaseled themselves into his life and now he cared for them just as much. 

            And Gemma.  What about Gemma?

            He never intended to feel for her that way.

            With Wendla, it had always been clear: she was young, beautiful, a childhood friend.  Trusting and curious, a little adventurous but always obedient to her mother.  He never would have gone after someone like Thea or Martha. Even wild Ilse wasn’t considered. Wendla was perfect for him, even though they might not have been perfectly suited in interests or personality. He’d imagined, when he’d heard of the baby, to take her away somewhere wonderful where they could grow up together. She’d have been a doting mother and a supportive lover.

            They’d never gotten that chance, and while Melchior knew he wasn’t the one who actually killed her, it was still his fault.  He could never reconcile that, and his mistake would stick with him for the rest of his life.

            With Gemma, it was a surprise.  Meeting her, talking and working, just being around her was fun and different, like having a best friend so unlike Moritz.  Moritz was jumpy and not on the same par academically.  Gemma was his match in everything, even if she was more emotional and prone to debate. 

            He’d caught himself making comments about her subconsciously: how her hair wasn’t so plain after all, and gleamed in the New York sunlight when bits of it fell from under her hat.  How she’d bite her lip when she knew she’d lost an argument, how endearing it was. At this point, there wasn’t any action or trait that he hadn’t deemed gorgeous for her, but the issue of Wendla still came up.

            Was he allowed to—dare he say it—be in love with Gemma after what he’d done to Wendla?

            He didn’t know the answer.  He didn’t know what to do if the answer was yes or no.  Melchior just wanted to see her as soon as possible.

 

            His chance came, in the form of a letter, on January 6th: Gemma requested a meeting a block away from her mansion. She wanted to meet briefly with Melchior—alone.

            “Why doesn’t she want to see me?” complained Fiff.

            “I’m sure she’ll send you a letter soon,” he soothed. “And she’ll want to meet just you.”

            The day came, and Melchior had to hide his excitement: he didn’t want Fiff to know about anything just yet. 

            “Well, it’s two,” he said nonchalantly.  “I should head out.  Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

            “Yeah, yeah, get out, you goose,” Fiff whined, practically shoving Melchior out the door.  “I want the house to myself for once.”

            “You know the rules: no friends, no parties, no girls, no catching anything on fire…”

            “I mean it, I will use this,” Fiff laughed, brandishing a large book. “Go, and bring your umbrella. It looks right dreadful out there.”

            Melchior didn’t even look out the window, giving a quick wink to Fiff and speeding downstairs.  Fiff sighed and said to no one in particular, “He’s a nice kid, but absolutely crazy.”

            Melchior saw as soon as he stepped outside that he should have followed Fiff’s advice: the skies were stormy and light rain was drizzling down on the city. He thought this was all the better, though, since he could convince Gemma to go somewhere inside to talk instead of stand out in the rain. 

            Almost reading his mind, lightning crashed in the distance and sent Melchior scurrying down the street.  He felt jumpy and energetic in the rain today, weather he usually hated. Rain meant cold, especially in January, but he felt strangely rejuvenated by it today. 

            It started pouring down harder and sent him running, soaking him completely and making him slip on patches of ice.  He was sure he was only bruising himself, but he could only be a little frustrated that every fall took seconds away from his time with Gemma, which wouldn’t be very long today.

            Damn it.  Every second he was away from her, he was turning into more of a romantic.  He’d _never_ been a romantic.  The most he’d ever done for Wendla in the way of romantic things were a few clumsy letters. By the time he even reached 4th Avenue, he’d have melted into a puddle of lovesick goo and slipped down the storm drain.

            Thunder crackled close by and made him recollect himself, so he kept walking and finally reached the corner of 4th, where he was happy to find himself completely solid and not even close to goo-like consistency.

            He had to check again when he saw her silhouette, just to make sure he hadn’t fallen to pieces.

            “Good afternoon, Miss Keeper,” he said, mocking a bow. “At least one of us brought an umbrella today.”

            She didn’t reply, only slightly inclining her head in agreement. Melchior tried to catch a glimpse of her expression, but too many things obscured it: the umbrella, the veil on her hat, the rainwater running through his hair and over his eyes.

            Speaking of the hat, Gemma was in her regular clothes rather than her disguise. He sized up her long grey coat and dress underneath, a little confused.

            “Heels, Gem?” he said, gesturing to her stylish boots.  “We’re not going anywhere, then.  You wouldn’t walk down these streets in heels if your life depended on it.”

            She still didn’t answer, or even laugh.  Melchior tried once again to peek under the black umbrella she held. “Are you all right?”  
            “I’ve come to say goodbye.”

           


	22. Chapter 22

She died when she said it.  The expression on his face was unfathomable.  She wanted nothing more than to usher him under her umbrella and keep him out of the rain that had him absolutely soaked to the skin.  He looked pathetic.

            His face passed from disbelief, to shock, and then to a huge laugh.  “What?”

            “I’ve come to say goodbye,” she continued, taking great care to hide the deep breaths she needed to take to say it in a measured, cold tone.  “I can’t do it anymore, not even the visits.  I’m sure you understand.”

            “You’re joking.  Tell me you’re joking.  You couldn’t stay away from Fiff if you tried.”

            “I cannot deny that I’ll miss you both greatly,” she said, “but in time, I believe you will see it was for the best.  I can’t keep disappearing a couple times a week.  Annie can’t hide this forever.  Eventually I had to give this up and just…let my life happen.”

            “Let your life happen?” he asked incredulously, not able to keep the scoffing edge out of his voice.  “Let’s imagine for one moment, just one, that you actually believe what you’re saying and will get over missing Fiff.  What about journalism?  You’re giving it up?”

            “I was on hiatus, anyway, and you yourself didn’t think I was any good.”

            “Good?  Damn it, Gemma, I didn’t mean a word.  I just couldn’t handle the competition.  You’re an incredible writer, and I just wanted excuses to get you with us more often.”

            “Be that as it may, it is an impossibility now.  This can’t keep happening, and it won’t,” she said impassively, not betraying the joy she felt at his confession: he really did think she was a good writer, she’d suspected it all along. 

            This was so hard.  It was obvious he didn’t believe her, he knew something else had to be up.  How could she make him understand?

            “I didn’t think,” she said more softly, avoiding looking at him at all costs, “that I could bring myself to say goodbye to Fiff in person.  I thought I’d be a little stronger to be able to face you.”

            “Gemma, this doesn’t make sense,” he said, half-pleading, half-angry.  “What happened?  Just tell me what happened: did your parents find out?  Is Annie blackmailing you?  You’ve got to give me something, some excuse, because I don’t buy that you’re giving up because you feel you’re going to get caught soon!”

            “Melchior—”

            “What about Fiff?  You’re his sister, his mother!  You used to be all he had, he can’t lose you.”

            “Melchior—” she repeated before getting cut off again, biting her lip on the sting his name brought.

            “What about the Times?  They’re expecting you to come back with new stories for the new year!”

            “Melchi, _please_!” she cried, letting a few tears betray her.  She cut her own self off and covered her face with her hands. 

            “Gem,” he said softly.  “You’re a dreadful liar.  You can’t hide anything.  Especially not from me, never from me.  You can’t lie to me.  So just tell me what’s going on, and I’ll help you.  If you need to run away, we can do that.  If you need a place to stay.  If you need money.  If you need anything—”

            “Melchior—”

            “—at all, it’s…Gemma, what about me?  Say you could abandon it all, Fiff and your career, but…do you think you could abandon me?  Could you stand it if you stopped talking to me, forever?”

            “I—”

            “I don’t think…I don’t think I could.”

            He shuffled a little closer, looking earnestly into her eyes.  The veil that hung from her absurd silk hat mixed with the rain made it so difficult to see!

            Wordlessly, she slipped off her left glove and threw it on the sidewalk, and it floated away in the small torrent of rainwater.  Like it mattered.

            “I can’t,” she said simply.  “I can’t do this anymore, because I’m engaged to Harry.”  She held up her left hand, where the ring gleamed from her finger.  “I’m getting married to Harry, Melchior.”

            The look on his face would have broken anyone’s heart.  The fact that she had caused it broke hers even more.

            “Harry?” he asked, barely in a whisper.  “How?  W-when?  When did this happen?”

            “Christmas Eve,” she said, surprisingly more composed now that she’d gotten it off her chest.  “The contract was arranged with my parents, and it all just happened.”

            “An engagement just _happened_?  Bull shit, you said you were going to put a stop to it!  You were going to intervene!”

            “I never got the chance, and to be honest, there’s no reason to!” she said.  “Harry’s been my friend since childhood, he’s kind, he’s rich, he’s been there for me before.  And goodness knows he’s handsome and he cares about me!  I should be thankful.  I am thankful.  This is the best future I could have gotten for myself.”

            “That bastard!  I’ll kill him!”

            “Stop it.  We knew this had to end at some point.  Private adventures, secret lives, danger and impropriety?  It couldn’t last forever, it’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did!  And I’m grateful, ever grateful, for you two.”

            “Well, that’s just wonderful!” he spat.  “Wonderful!  I’m glad I was something you were _grateful_ for at the time!”

            He looked mad.  He looked wild, he looked broken.  This was a terrible idea.

            “I’m sorry,” she tried.  “It’s not my fault!  Well, it is my fault, it’s entirely my fault, but you want me to be happy, don’t you?”

            “No!”

            “Please don’t turn this into something ugly!  I—I won’t be able to see you after this.  I want us to part friends.  Best friends.  We were…we were something like best friends, weren’t we?”

            “Best friends?  _Best friends_?  And you think I want you to be _happy_?  How can you even say those things?” he yelled, making a small angry circle in the rain. “I don’t want you to be happy.  I want you to be entirely unhappy and miserable and _here_ , with us, and doing what you love while being with the people you really care about!  That’s what I want!”

            Gemma backed away, clutching tighter at her black umbrella.  “I’m sorry.  I should go.”

            “No, no, damn it, don’t go!” he said, looking weary.  All the fierceness seemed to leave him and he stood before her, shoulders hunched.  Gemma took a tentative step toward him, watching the rain fall over him and desperately wanting to put the umbrella over both of them.

            He pushed back his hair, wincing, and came with a new attempt: “What if we just left?  Left the engagement?  Left this life?  We could just get out of here for a little while, sort things out.  You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

            “I’m not running away.  That’s what I’ve been doing with you two this whole time.  It’s now the time for me to face this and be braver about the life I’ve been born into.”

            “No.  No, it’s not.  The life you were born into is the one you’re meant to lead with us.”

            “Just stop it! I’m tired of this!” she whined. “I don’t want to argue about it anymore, please!  Please, Melchior!  Please, just…just let’s shake hands, and let me apologize, and let me leave.  Tell Fiff I’m sorry and just let it be.”

            “No.”

            “Please?”

            “No!”

            “For me?  Melchior, I’m begging you!  You never listen to anything else I say, can we start now?  Can you just walk away and make things easier for me?!”

            “NO!” he roared.  “I cannot walk away from this, from you, it’s not fair—it’s not fair for me to have to do this again—I won’t let this happen!  You know I’ll fight until you wake up and realize that you’re making a mistake by submitting to this!  You think it’s the right thing to do, but it’s just stupid!”

            “I don’t have any other options!” she yelled.  “I don’t want you to fight, I want you to leave!”

            He stepped closer, seeing red, and seized her by the shoulders.  “I can’t!  I _can’t_ , Gemma Keeper!  I can’t, and I never can, and you’ve already guessed why.”

            He loosened his hold on her shoulders, not wanting to hurt her, and slowly felt his mind slip and whirl and fall away.  Gemma was here, Gemma was right in front of him, and she knew, because she wasn’t stupid.

            She looked up into his eyes with her own ridiculous grey ones.  “Melchior Gabor?”

            He cupped her cheek; he couldn’t help it.  “I think I’m in love with you, Gemma.”

            She shook her head.  “No.”

            “I’m in love with you, Gemma.”

            “No,” she repeated, and he didn’t lean in closer.  He just continued to stare steadily at her, almost simply.

            “I’m in love with you,” he said, stepping under the umbrella with her.  She knew the rainwater he brought with him soaked the front of her dress, standing so close to her under the small umbrella, but she couldn’t feel it.  All she could feel were his hazel eyes, warm, pleading, desperate, perfect.  Not the tortured ones Fiff had noticed.  Changed a little bit, changed enough.

            Maybe by her.

            “No, you’re not,” she said, pushing him away a little. 

            He smirked.  “Oh, aren’t I?”

            “No.”

            “Would you like me to say it again, so you could deny it a few more times?  Would that make this more enjoyable?”

            She didn’t hear a word he said. 

            “You knew at the party.  You’ve known it a long time now.  Why don’t you believe me now?  I’m completely in love with you, even though I know I shouldn’t be, even though I knew I couldn’t be and still know I can’t be, but I don’t care.  You’re the one I pick.  And you can swear up and down until the ends of the earth that you don’t have feelings for me, and I will never care, because I love you—”

            Neither one knew who moved in first, but they both went in and finally, _finally_ : kissed.  Melchior did it with such fervor, in fact, that he knocked Gemma’s hat off her head and she dropped her umbrella completely.  It blew away, a lopsided bird, in the stormy wind while they let the rain pour over them. 

            And it was perfect.  Gemma could feel everything: the rain pounding from above, the thunder rattling her bones, and Melchior.  He was everywhere, firmly holding her to him, arms wrapped around her, lips working with hers.  This was perfection.  This was what she’d been dreaming of.  This was what she’d seen in her mind’s eye when Harry had knelt before her, ring in hand.

            This was what she wanted.

            “Hey,” she grinned, breaking away for air and pulling a few wet tendrils from her face, “I was going to tell you something today.”

            “And what was that?”

            “I think you were trying to kiss me at the party.”

            “You’re a genius.”

            “I think you might love me.”

            “Now, how did you guess?”

            “Intuition.”

            And they were at it again.


	23. Chapter 23

Melchior had heard from all the romances of the time that when you kissed the one, the person you were meant to be with, you couldn’t notice or feel anything that wasn’t them.  He had a different theory.

            Of course, he could feel it all, and Gemma was most of it.  But the funny thing was, he could clearly see everything else going on around him.  Even with his eyes closed, the rain seemed to penetrate his senses even more.  It poured over each of them, making each kiss stranger and more wonderful, and pelted them without ceasing.  He could feel the stares and coughs of passersby, which he ignored with glee.  He’d let the world stop and stare if it wanted to.  Harry Madison, Wilhelmina Keeper, and Fiff could all walk by at the same time and witness this, and he’d never care.  This was right, and if they couldn’t handle watching it, too bad.

            That wasn’t exactly accurate, and he certainly didn’t want them to walk by, but it was the thought that counted.

            The wind, thunder, and lightning were a symphony as he kissed her.  He marveled at how much was going on while they embraced, but most of his focus went to Gemma and how wonderful she was.  Somehow, with barely any experience on both sides, they’d manage to learn how to kiss in the space of a few seconds, and he was pleasantly surprised with how perfect it seemed to be. 

            He couldn’t hold her any tighter, but he kept trying: Melchior was literally using all his arm strength to crush her to his chest.

            She seemed to be trying the same thing, and Melchior broke away and grabbed her hand, smiling broader than he ever had in his entire life.  They broke into a run, slipping and falling over each other on the icy streets.  They didn’t say anything; they didn’t need to. 

            They’d run through half the city when Melchior lost his patience with those high-heeled boots of hers.  With an impressive show of strength, he swept Gemma up into his arms and ran with her, dripping skirts and all, the entire way home.  She didn’t make it easy for him, trying to keep kissing him as he navigated the streets, and in between laughs he couldn’t help but kiss her back. 

            Anyone who saw them running through the streets together either had to laugh at their infatuation or roll their eyes.   

            Finally, they reached his apartment building, and getting up the stairs was a different matter entirely.  Melchior would try and get her up a few stairs, but he’d be so distracted by her that he’d end up putting her down or pushing her against a wall to kiss her better.  The entire thing was difficult to accomplish.

            “Melchior!” she laughed, trying to pull him by his collar up the stairs.  “Come on!”

            Winking slyly, he picked her up front and she wrapped her legs around his waist, and they kissed all the way up the stairs and fumbled through the flat door.

            “We’re going to get the bed all wet, aren’t we?” she asked as they stumbled to it.

            “Don’t care,” he murmured against her lips, laying her on top of it.  “Do you?”

            “No.”

            They continued for a few minutes, laughing a little at their clumsiness.  After all, Gemma had never done anything like this, and Melchior had only had the one afternoon (which he wasn’t going to admit to her). 

            “These clothes are in the way,” he admitted, brushing her loose wet hair out of her face.  “Do you think…would you mind…?”

            “No!  Not at all!” she laughed, straightening up and taking a chance to breath while he removed his shirt.  “Wow.”

            “ ‘Wow’ what?”

            She didn’t answer, instead attacking him with kisses at his neck and placing her hands on his bare chest. 

            “Excited, are we?” he chuckled, rubbing her back.  He didn’t really care, of course, for he was just as excited as she was.  No one had ever done this for him before, and it was intoxicating. 

            She pushed him back on the rickety bed, giggling at the rusty sound the springs made and continuing to kiss him.  This was incredible: Melchior was here, Melchior was hers, and Melchior was perfect.  She couldn’t believe that he was kissing her back, and how gentle he was now, letting her explore.  After all, she’d never done anything like this before in her entire life, and she had no idea what to do.  But Melchior was half-naked on a bed underneath her, and that was a definite start.

            “Wait!” he said, getting up and pulling off her coat.  She understood immediately, throwing off her other glove and kicking off her shoes.

            “I’m going to need help with this horrid dress,” she warned him as she removed a few stray pins from her hair.

            “Working on it,” he said, pulling at the tiny buttons that lined worked all the way down the dress.  “What is it with you fine ladies and these damn buttons?”

            He couldn’t focus very well with Gemma kissing the crown of his head as he pulled the tiny buttons out of their holes, so he just gave her a quick kiss and pulled the dress apart from the front.  She gasped as the fabric tore away.

            “You ruined it!” she laughed, shimmying out of the dreaded thing and throwing it in a heap on the floor.

            He whistled.  “I might have to ruin more,” he said incredulously, speaking directly to Gemma’s corset, chemise, tights, and seemingly thousands of other tight undergarments.  “This will take all day.”

            “I don’t care,” she assured him.  “Ruin it all.  I never want to have to wear it again, never again.”

            “Will do,” he said, attacking the strings of the corset.  “This must be a torture device.”

            “It’s not so bad when _you’re_ taking it off,” she giggled in between stolen kisses.  Melchior’s usually quick fingers were numb from the cold January rain, and it made the string pulling even harder. 

            Finally, he got the horrible thing off her and threw it on the floor as well, and she settled back into the bed after she pulled off her wet tights.

            Her eyes were wild.  “Melchior?” she asked, a little nervously as he positioned himself above her, blushing furiously.  After all, she felt completely vulnerable in her chemise, and he still wasn’t wearing a shirt.  She knew what was going to come next.  “Melchior, are we—that is, we’re about to—”

            “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he reassured her, backing away.  He wasn’t making the same mistake twice.  He’d done so well keeping Wendla’s face out of his mind this entire time.

            “N-no, I-I think I want to.  I trust you.”

            That was all he needed, and he began to lean in for a slow kiss.  “I trust _you_.”

            “Be gentle?” she asked softly after the kiss, looking very nervous but confident in some small, strange way that can only come from loving a person.

            “Of course.”  He kissed her as slowly and softly as he dared, wanting to assuage all her fears.  “Ready?”

            “Yes.”

            “WHAT.  THE.  HELL.”

            The couple abruptly turned their heads to the couch, where Fiff was sitting absolutely petrified.

            “I’m sorry,” he said immediately, not looking a bit sorry, “but ARE YA CRAZY?  Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, because I’m not an idiot!”

            Gemma squeaked and kicked Melchior off her, and he landed on the floor with a shocked ‘oof’.  “Fiff!  How long have you been sitting there?”  
            “I’ve been here the entire time!  Like I TOLD Melchior, I’d keep the house to myself today, and here I am minding my own business when you two come in, looking like bedraggled cats in heat, and start thumpin’ all over the bed!  I SLEEP THERE, you guys!” he ranted, white-faced. 

            “I-I’m so sorry,” she began.  “I didn’t know you were there.  I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

            “Oh, I’m sure you’re real sorry, Jim.  You looked real sorry a few minutes ago.”

            Melchior groaned.  “Fiff, these are very grown-up things that you wouldn’t understand.”

            “I understand plenty, you perverted moron.  Aw, come on, I’m going to have to live with that memory forever!  Couldn’t you have toned it down a bit, or at least made sure you were alone?”

            “I guess we were a little preoccupied,” Gemma laughed.  “I’m sorry, Fiff.”

            “Oh, I don’t blame you, really,” he smiled in return.  “Melchior’s a looker, all right, and it was only a matter of time before he went after you.  You should have heard how he went on about you sometimes.”

            “This,” Melchior pronounced, “is the worst day of my life.”

            “Oh, is that so?” Gemma asked, getting off the bed and standing before him, hands on hips. 

            “You know that’s not what I meant,” he grinned devilishly, getting up off the floor.

            “You’ve done it now,” Fiff said.

            “Fiffian,” he responded, putting his arms around Gemma.  “When the most beautiful woman in the world is standing in front of you in just a chemise, there’s not a lot that can get you down.”

            “Ah, when you say things like _that_ …” she said, rolling her eyes.  “Okay, for Fiff’s sake, no more.”

            Fiff clapped his hands gleefully, not having to watch them go at it again.

            “Are you kidding me?” Melchior asked, keeping himself off his knees so he wouldn’t have to beg.  “Are you _kidding_ me?  That’s not fair!”

            “I’m going to read Fiff a story and then head home,” she said, twirling in her chemise like it was a summer dress. 

            Melchior flopped, facedown, on the small soaked bed.  “Worst day ever.”

            “You’re sleeping on the bed tonight,” Fiff told him from the couch as Gemma sat down with him.  “I don’t want all your love germs to get all over me.”

            “I have news for you, Fiff,” he grinned.  “That couch you’re sitting on?  That’s where I first kissed Gemma.”

            “WHAT?”

            “Well, not on the lips,” he said suggestively.

            Fiff gagged and ran away from the couch.  “This entire flat is contaminated!”

 

            “Do you really have to go?” he asked her later that day, when she was arranging the corset back on her chest.

            She didn’t answer, simply smiling a favor from him.  “Help me with my clothes?”

            He obliged her, gently pulling at the strings and stroking her neck from behind.  “I did offer that we could run away together.”  
            “No,” she said.  “I need to sort things out.  I need to go back home and fix this engagement.”  She turned to him and pulled off Harry’s ring, putting it in her coat pocket on the floor. 

            Melchior moaned.  “The engagement!  I completely forgot!”

            “We would have done all this even if you hadn’t,” she giggled, jumping back over to him and putting her arms around him.  “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier, or in more trouble.”

            “You know where to find us if you really are in trouble.”

            “Mmm.”

            Fiff cleared his throat from the floor, near the stove.  “The minor is still in the room.”

            Melchior glared at him.  “Then look away.”

            He ‘eep’ed and Melchior caught Gemma’s lips with his for a minute, relishing each second.  “You’ll make everything right.  I know you can do it.”

            “The vote of confidence helps,” she said.  “Let’s hope I can actually call this whole thing off.”

            She pulled on the dress and tights, laughing at the tear down the front.  “Someone was a little impatient to take my virtue, weren’t they?”

            “I regret nothing,” Melchior replied, giving her her coat.

            “Neither do I,” she said in farewell.  She waved to the gagging Fiff and to Melchior.  “I’ll be back soon, hopefully with good news.”

            “Hurry.”


	24. Chapter 24

Fiff was giving him a look, he could tell.  Melchior could practically feel the little boy’s eyes boring into his back as he continued to wave down the stairs.  Gemma would walk down a few and glance back, laughing and gleaming when she saw Melchior still watching her leave. 

            He made sure she was out the door before he turned around.           

            Fiff had his hands folded, very businesslike, and said, “Well, Mr. Melcor, I hope you know I will never, ever stop teasin’ ya about this.”

            Melchior’s good mood did not vanish that easily.  “I’m sure you have a lot of material to use in that regard.”

            “Oh yes.  I could go on forever about what you look like without a shirt on, or how Gemma kicked you off the bed, the right funny look you kept givin’ her all day.  You’re smitten.”

            “Are you surprised?”  
            “Nah, I knew you were in love with her the whole time.  There are some things only us kids can pick up on, and you older kids don’t know what’s goin’ on until it’s staring you right in the face.”

            Melchior settled onto his stool.  “So you’re all right with it?”

            “Yeah.  I told ya I knew it would happen, I just didn’t wanna say it out loud.  But what about Harry?”

            “She’s going to work on it.”

            “That sounds promising.”

            “Well,” Melchior said, keeping his cool, “what do you suggest?  She’s engaged, and I can’t move any further until she’s free of Harry.”

            “Hey, don’t look at me, I’m not the one who seduce someone’s fiancée,” Fiff shrugged.  “I hope you have a plan for me tonight, because I’m not sleepin’ on that bed until the sheets are washed.”

            “We’ll work it out,” Melchior promised.

            “As long as you do, lover boy.”  Fiff paced around the room.  “She’s in love with you, too?”

            “Of course she is.  At least…damn it.”

            “What?”

            Melchior rubbed his temples in frustration.  “She never said it.  I told her, I told her I loved her a million times, but she never said it back.”

            “Don’t worry about it,” Fiff said, all comfort now.  “She does.  She just didn’t have to say it out loud, I s’pose.  After all, she was about to let you…well…she wouldn’t ruin her reputation for nothin’.”

            “Of course.  Of course, you’re right,” Melchior agreed.  “She must love me.  She trusts me.  Gemma’s going to find a way to call off the engagement and we can be together.  She loves me, too.”

            “So don’t worry about it.”

            “I won’t.”

 

            “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me, Gemma!” Annie groaned when she came home.  “You disappear all day, you look a fright, and dinner’s on in three minutes!  What did you do?”

            Gemma twirled inside the servants’ entrance, humming.  “Dinner in three?”  
            “Miss Gemma Katherine Keeper, what did HE do?”

            “Oh, Annie!” she said, closing her eyes blissfully as she took off her coat.  “He’s in love with me.  Melchior’s in love with me.  Everything’s perfect.”

            “Oh, of course.  Just perfect.  Your fiancé’s upstairs, by the way.”

            If it was possible for that girl to leave in a poof of pink dust, it would have been her chosen mode of exit: Gemma was on cloud nine, and she was going to have a lot questions to answer at dinner, but nothing Annie could say would bring her down to earth.

            Gemma skipped up the stairs, thanking Annie for covering for her _again_ , and left the maid to her thoughts.

            While she went to clean one of the powder rooms, she ruminated on the whole thing: she’d known that Gemma liked the boy for quite some time now.  Every time she talked to Annie about her days out, she’d mention his work and intelligence in a dreamy sort of voice that Annie doubted she noticed.

            When the boy entered the house to go to the party, Annie would have fainted in surprise were it not for her tight grip on reality.  She recognized him, of course, and knew it was a terrible idea.  Still, he promised not to make a spectacle and just entertain her young mistress for the night, and she’d let him in.  After all, it took a lot of energy to lift her spirits in the Keeper Mansion, where Gemma used all her time to focus on being miserable.

            Annie didn’t understand how Gemma hated her life so much: she’d love to have a ton of money and a handsome suitor after her.  She knew that the girl felt isolated and mistreated and terribly alone, and that she wasn’t cut out for the life of the upper class women, but she didn’t think it was necessary to complain.

            But she was Gemma’s only friend and the only person close to understanding her in the entire house, so she’d help her as long as she needed. 

 

            It was happening again, exactly like the last time.  And it was agony.

 

            _Wendla is kissing him in the hayloft again, on top of him in a strikingly similar way that Gemma had been two weeks ago.  She kisses just like her, too._

_“Wendla,” he breathes happily, getting dizzier with each kiss._

_“Come on,” she says, pulling him up.  “I have something to show you.”_

_They skip outside the hayloft and into the streets of New York.  Together they run, like children, past the cars and carriages to a shipyard._

_“Look!” Wendla cries, tugging joyfully on Melchior’s arm and pointing to one of the cruisers.  “Look, isn’t she beautiful?”_

_Gemma is standing, back turned, on the boat.  Seagulls fly overhead and the flags of the ship blow in the dreamy breeze that Melchior can’t feel._

_“She is, she’s perfect,” he replies.  Looking back up at the ship, he calls out for her.  “Gemma!  Come down!”_

_She doesn’t hear him, or perhaps she ignores him.  Moritz walks over to her on the deck of the cruiser, and he can see his best friend clearly kneeling down and winking at him before opening a ring box._

_Gemma jumps up and down in joy and Moritz sweeps her up in his arms.  They swirl around the deck of the boat, and Melchior cries out in shock.  This is wrong, this is all wrong.  Gemma isn’t marrying Moritz._

_As soon as the thought enters his mind, Harry replaces Moritz and continues to waltz with Gemma on the cruiser, while Melchior tries in vain to climb up the ship’s side.  “No, no, no!  Harry, she doesn’t want you!”_

_“Don’t I?”  Gemma laughs, nestling into Harry’s arms._

_“Melchior!” a voice calls beneath him, and he turns from his hold on the boat to see Wendla underwater, struggling and reaching for the surface.  She thrashes and splashes, opening her mouth in apparent screams for help._

_Her eyes, wide and brown, stare into his in desperation and shock.  They plead with him; she is drowning._

_A storm begins in the shipyard, tossing the giant boats into choppy waves.  
            Wendla stops thrashing and slowly begins to sink. _

_“Wendla!  No!” he shouts, throwing himself into the water and swimming desperately through the eerie green to get her._

_She holds a hand out to him, but before he can grasp her hand and pull her to the air, something catches the back of his shirt collar and wheels him around.  Wendla claws at his ankle, trying to climb up his body to the surface and pulling him deeper, while Melchior finds himself face to face with an underwater Gemma.  She smiles as her hair floats in the water and holds his face in front of hers, not letting him move._

_When he feels he is out of air and is about to whisper a watery goodbye, she lets him go and floats to the deep._

_Her smile is a replica of the final smile she’d flashed at him before heading out the door on that rainy day two weeks before._

_And he feels himself falling backward._

“GEMMA!” Melchior screamed in his sleep, throwing the covers off him and sitting up straight in bed.  He wiped off the cold sweat and glared at the snoring Fiff, who’d secretly trained himself to sleep through these nightly fits.

            This was agony.  He no longer had just the worry of the dead. 

            Just like last time, when he’d allowed himself a moment of intimacy with Gemma, she’d gone missing directly after.  It was just like the coming-out party, but unfathomably worse.  He’d only tried to kiss her at the party and hadn’t heard from her for two weeks. 

            It had been two weeks since then, and he hadn’t heard from her at all.  No letters, no visits, not even a mention of her in the news.  Fiff went on a few searches for her, looking in the New York Times office and the Red Fish, even in Central Park.  Nothing had turned up, and he didn’t feel like trying their house yet.  Jacky would recognize him as cousin Philip Martin, and he didn’t have the clothes Gemma gave him for the party. 

            Melchior knew he shouldn’t jump to conclusions, and that any number things could have happened to her.  She could have been found out by her family, she could be having trouble with breaking off the engagement.  Harry could have forced her into staying in the contract.

            But his heart couldn’t see reason, even if his mind came up with it.

            She’d abandoned him.  She didn’t care about him.  He’d made a fool of himself with his confession and frightened her.  She’d been confused, since they were friends and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and now that they were apart she felt differently.  Gemma had never admitted that she loved him back, and that seemed crucial.  A girl in love would have admitted that, right?

            Another week went by with no word, and Fiff’s searches got more frantic.  Unfortunately, Fiff had to return home every night to a depressed Melchior.  He wouldn’t do anything: he never wrote, he barely ate, he didn’t sleep.  His looks got haggard and pale.  It was almost disgusting to watch, and it was worse for Fiff to see.   

            Melchior had seemed to get better with Fiff and Gemma around, but it was back to square one.  Seeing such a dear friend like that was hard.  Seeing him clearly wallowing in his own misery was unbearable.

            “Why don’t you come with me?” Fiff asked for the millionth time one day in February.  “I still haven’t checked her house, and that’s probably where she is.”

            “No,” Melchior said from the bed, lying in a heap.

            Fiff rolled his eyes and pounced on the bed.  “Come on!  You care about her!  Why don’t you help me find out what’s up with her?”

            “If she really was in trouble, she would have come to us.  She said she would.  She’s just ignoring me because she’s realized her mistake.”

            Fiff smacked his arm.  “This is sick.  You don’t really care, else you’d know something else could be up.”

            “She was going to say goodbye forever to us that day.  She just wanted to meet to say goodbye and then marry Harry.  Who’s to say she hasn’t done that this time?”

            “I don’t believe this!” Fiff shouted.  “I’m not gonna sit here and watch you act like a big baby all day.  You’re being such an idiot, and it’s all because you’re too worried she rejected you to even confront her about it!”

            “This doesn’t concern you,” Melchior said murderously.  “You don’t understand a thing that’s going on here.”

            “I understand everything!  I’m not stupid!  I may be some little ward you picked up off the street, but that doesn’t give you the right to say I don’t understand!  You two are my business.  You’re my concern.  If I can’t put you two to rights, I can’t do nothin’.”

            “Stay out of this!” Melchior warned him.

            “No!  I’m going to go looking for her again, and you’re welcome to come along when you wake up and smell the coffee.”

            “You’re not going out again.  I forbid it.”

            “And who’s going to stop me?  You haven’t left the bed in days.”

            “Fiff, you will do as I say, or _so help me_ —”

            “You KNOW WHAT?” Fiff yelled, gathering his floppy coat and hat.  “I’m not dealing with this.  I’m going out and finding our friend, and then we’re not coming BACK!”


	25. Chapter 25

Melchior was actually happy Fiff left the house: it took up a lot of his time thinking of things to yell at him when he returned.  A good ‘I told you so’ was in order, along with several ‘I hope you’re happy, you had me worried sick’s  and ‘Are you ready to behave and apologize for being so rude?’s. 

            It sounded so much like what his father used to say to him that he shuddered and spent the entire night waiting on the couch for Fiff to come home, frostbitten and contrite.

            He didn’t come back that night.

            Melchior spent the next day on the couch in the same position, getting up only once to unlock the door so Fiff could come back in.

            He spent the day after on the couch, too, not caring when the fire went out in the stove and his apartment plunged into freezing.

           

            They were gone.

            Both of them were gone, of their own volition.  Once again, he’d let two people become close to them and gotten rid of them when things in his life were getting good.

            Gemma didn’t want him anymore.  He hadn’t bothered to read any of the newspapers, and thus he didn’t know if Gemma and Harry had been married yet.  He doubted it, if the arrangements were to be made according to Wilhelmina’s wishes.

            Gemma knew he loved her, and didn’t care. 

            Fiff had grown tired of him, after being the only person in the world that Melchior thought had a chance at understanding his pain and helping with him.  Fiff didn’t want to put up with the depression and lovesickness. 

            He was left with no one and nothing now. 

            Five years ago, he’d loved a girl who might have loved him back, but his actions led to her death.  He’d had a friend dearer to him than a brother, but he met the same fate.

            Five weeks ago, he’d loved a girl and scared her away, and he’d had a friend dearer than a brother who’d left him behind.  Melchior Gabor was left behind.  _There is no difference between then and now._

 _Yes, there is,_ a small voice began in his mind.  _They’re alive.  I just pushed them away._

_They’re alive._

_They’re ALIVE._

The arguing voice sneered at this obvious epiphany.  _But they’re gone._

_No.  NOT gone.  There’s still a chance I can make things right, if I know I’m unwilling to lose them._

_And are you, Melchior Gabor?_

He looked around his flat, focusing for the first time in a week on something that wasn’t the wall in front of him or the door.  The entire place was a windswept mess, in complete and utter squalor.  A pigsty, a mess.

            But there was evidence that they’d both been here.  Fiff’s letters and books were still in a pile on the floor.  Crumples sheets of paper from Gemma and Melchior’s story still sat in the trash bin.  Gemma’s front page story was still pinned, yellowing and crumbling, on the wall.

            “Yes,” he said out loud.  “I am unwilling to lose them.”

           

            The Keeper house looked just as imperious in the cold February sunshine, imposing its great shadow on Melchior.  He knew he looked like a mess, but he’d tried to clean up before coming.  He just couldn’t wait to see Gemma again, even if she would not accept him.

            Before entering, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to think of her warmly: he could walk in and be accepted, go into her parlor, and there she’d be.  She could be wearing a dress or trousers or just a chemise and he’d be happy.  She’d smile and ask him to sit with her, scolding him for the circles under his eyes.                     

            “You won’t have anything if you don’t have your looks,” she’d tease.

            Maybe Fiff would be inside.

            He knocked on the door, opened by an unfamiliar doorman, and walked inside before a member of the family could receive him.

            He didn’t exactly have a plan.  If Mrs. Keeper or a sister intercepted him, he might just have to explain himself.  If Gemma found him, they could go somewhere private and talk.  It would all depend.

            The first thing he noticed was how dark the house was.

            “Gabor?” someone asked from the shadows.  “What are you doing here?”

            “Annie?” he asked, and the maid stepped into the weak light of the hall chandelier.  “Why’s the house so dark?  Isn’t anyone home?”

            “N-no, they’re all out—they’re in Pennsylvania, now, actually.  Philadelphia.”

            “Philadelphia?  Is Gemma with them?”

            “I seriously doubt that, that’s why they’re over there.”

            “Annie,” he pleaded.  “I need to speak to her.  I’m sure you know why.”

            Annie sighed and pulled him into the dark sitting room, where only the light from the window illuminated the stuffy room.  “You’re in love with her, I heard.  Is that why you’re here?”

            “Sort of.  I haven’t heard from her in five weeks, and I’m just a little…well, I’m really worried.  Can I just talk to her for a little bit?”

            “Oh, Melchior,” she said, biting her lip.  “I thought you already knew.  I thought maybe your little friend had told you.”

            “Told me what?  Is she sick?  Is she married?  Is she—” He closed his eyes.  “Is she dead?”

            “I don’t know.”  Annie patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.  “Melchior, she ran away.  Four weeks ago.  Her family has been out looking for her, but things don’t look too well.”

            Melchior nodded once, and then his legs buckled underneath him.

 

            “Gabor, it’s not all bad!  We just don’t know anything, that’s all!”

            “What HAPPENED?” he said through gritted teeth.

            “I don’t know.  She was doing fine, going along with the whole marriage plan, and then one day she was just gone.  There wasn’t a trace of her, and the Keepers hired the best detectives in the area.  She didn’t want to be found.”

            “She didn’t leave a hint?  A note?”

            “Nothing.  I think that she just wanted to get away.  She was out of options, and the only way to save herself was just to run away.”

            “But still…I offered to help her!  To run away with her, to give her a place to stay.”

            “I don’t think that would have helped.  She needed to think things over, especially in regard to you.”

            “I just…I don’t…” He bit back tears, which he felt coming full force in his eyes.  “I love her.  She could be anywhere, she could be in even bigger trouble, and there’s no trace.  She’s never even told me a place she wanted to go, somewhere I could look for her.”

            “I’m very sorry.”  Annie got up.  “I wish I could tell you more.  I care about her too, and I was happy to help her meet you.  I just hope she’s okay.”

            “Me too.  Thank you for all your help, Annie.”

            “Her family hired all the right people to find her.  Wilhelmina was furious.”

            “She would be.”

            “Don’t be too angry with her mother,” Annie cautioned.  “She’s not as bad as Gemma’s made her out to be.  She was raised a certain way, and she’s raising her family the same way.  She really does care about Gemma and her wellbeing, that’s why she picked Harry instead of some random old man.  And the whole family is out in Philadelphia secretly.  It’s a bad business: if it’s revealed to New York society that she’d run away, her reputation will be ruined.”

            “That may be just what she wants.  But who knows?  Thank you, once again, Annie.  You’ve done a great deal.”

 

            She really was gone.  He’d wanted so much to believe that Fiff was right all along: that she’d been forced into the engagement after trying to break it off, but this was clear.  Everything had been too much for her, including his love, and she’d run away with the intention of never coming back and never being found.

            _This is where we first met_ , he thought.  _At least, for real._  

            Why did he have to learn here of all places that the woman he was in love with really had abandoned him?

            That was he place she’d stood, next to the piano, looking flabbergasted that the boy she’d met on the street had coming looking for her with a message.  This was the bookcase from which she withdrew his portfolio, and the books with covers that all matched the cover of _Great Expectations_ , which he’s given back to her.   

            Melchior searched the old spines of the books for the book he’d thought of, but _Great Expectations_ was missing.  This distressed him: had she thought to bring it with her?  Did she bring _A Christmas Carol_ on her trip? 

            Maybe she had.  Maybe she’d taken them to remind her of him while she sorted things out.  After all, _Great Expectations_ had kind of brought them together, and their shared love (and debates over its various themes) were something they’d shared in the long days they’d spent together.  And _A Christmas Carol_ ….well, it was his gift to her, when she’d felt broken.  It had brought her happiness.

            Satisfied that Gemma at least brought some keepsakes of him on her trip, knowing she couldn’t read them without thinking about him, Melchior left the dark sitting room and entered the deserted hallway.  He checked to make sure no one was watching before climbing up the staircase and opening the door into Gemma’s room.

            Same creamy furnishings.  Same four-poster bed and window seat.  Not a whisper of her taste in the entire room, but still precious and sacred.  She’d slept there every night.  She’d sat there on the window seat, looking for trash collecting spies.  She’d gone through shoes and gaudy outfits over in her closet.

            Melchior felt a little improper being in her room, but he mostly felt lonely.  If she really was thinking of him, she’d be back one day, and he’d have to wait.  Maybe that was all she was doing: waiting out the engagement until Harry married some other girl.  Then she could come back secretly and stay with Fiff and Melchior with the air clear of her disappearance.

            That made sense, didn’t it?

            Closing the door quietly behind him, he removed his coat and sat on her bed.  The entire room was so empty and dark.  The entire house was dead. 

            And yet, in the gloom of her bedroom, he spotted the shine of something gold on her nightstand.  Melchior turned immediately to catch a better look at it, practically jumping across the bed.  His heart sunk further, if that was even possible, when he realized what it was.

            The gold design on the leather cover of _Great Expectations_.  And under it?  Melchior’s gift, _A Christmas Carol._

She hadn’t brought them with her.

            Gemma was literally gone, gallivanting across the country or even the world without anything to remind her of the boy who’d so unfortunately fallen in love with her.

            Melchior wanted to swear.  He wanted to call her a thousand horrible names, cursing every inch and part of her.  She was the temptress, the tease, the heartbreaker who’d brought him to life again and ran away laughing from her reanimated creation, incapable of functioning on his own.

            But he knew he couldn’t because even if she had willfully left him, even done it gladly, he loved her too much to think one bad thing of her, and thus thought a million bad things of himself instead.  He hadn’t been good enough for her.  She hadn’t even said ‘I love you’.

            Melchior grabbed the books and cradled them to his chest, lying down on the bed and staring up at the drapery above it.

            He was sure he could lie here for the rest of his life and the servants would never come in and see him.  Maybe one day she’d even come back and find him.

            That comforted him, somehow.  A twenty-year-old Gemma, three years older and more beautiful than any creature he’d ever beheld, coming back to the dead house for something she’d left behind and finding the greatest thing she’d left behind on her bed.

            Well, if she ever chose to come back, she wasn’t going to find him here, pitiful.  Melchior shoved himself off the bed and took the two books with him.


	26. Chapter 26

Committing the address of an employee to memory was not always a bad idea for the boss of a large industry.  Going after an employee to their apartment was one of those bad ideas, however, that didn’t bother Norman Howard.  After all, he’d started from the bottom as an investigative reporter in his early years, and sneaking in and out of places was a talent he was embarrassed to admit to having. 

            The fact was this: Melchior Gabor had returned the suit, over the moon with an apparent success at some party, and brought in stellar work for a few weeks.  They certainly helped him get over the grudge he now had with the elusive Jimmy Hugo, who’d taken a trip around the state for exclusive story-hunting.  At least, that’s what little Fiff had told him Hugo was up to, and the paper hadn’t had a single piece from the recluse since then.

            About five weeks later, he hadn’t heard a word from Melchior Gabor.  He didn’t arrive in his office for the scheduled meetings, he didn’t mail anything in, and Howard hadn’t seen him about anywhere.  He even secretly sent someone to search for word of him, and the only place he’d been was the Keeper mansion a week ago.

            So, Norman Howard himself was trudging through the sludge on the sidewalks toward the boy’s flat with a few choice words to say.

            He’d spoken a little harshly to the crony old landlady of the apartment, walked up the creaky iron steps of the garret, and knocked on the old oak door.  When no one answered, he would have turned away and come back another day, but reporter’s intuition told him to try opening the door.  So he did, finding it surprisingly open, and slowly pushed open the door.

            His old bones almost immediately recoiled: a burst of cold wind swirled back at him and almost shut the door in his face, but he pressed it open all the way and stepped into the one-room apartment.

            “Ugh!” he grunted in disgust.  Papers rustled on the floor in little tornadoes, and he had to brush them away so he could keep walking through the room.  Dishes were broken on the floor, ashes from the unused stove were spread over the rug, and a rat stole through the room and into a whole near the open window.

            The giant window was the source of the freezing cold: snow and gusts of wind blasted their way through the icebox of an apartment.

            A shape on the wasted couch, under a thick afghan, shivered slightly.

            “Gabor?” he asked.  “Is that you?”

            The shape coughed and turned, revealing the pale and sickly face of the boy.  “Mr. ’oward?”

            Howard looked at the boy’s squinting face.  Melchior pushed the blanket off a little, revealing a pile of books and a half-full wine bottle.

            “Are you drunk, boy?”

            Melchior glanced at the bottle and chuckled sadly.  “No.  I’ve never been a big drinker.  I’ve been working at this bottle for a few days now.”

            “Have you been eating at all?”

            “A little, I guess.”

            “And are you sick?”

            “Not to my knowledge.”

            “Then why,” Howard said through gritted teeth, “the hell haven’t you been at work?”

            Melchior frowned in confusion.  “I’ve been busy.”

            “Terribly busy, by the looks of it.  I can see you’ve been cleaning diligently.”

            Melchior shrugged off the blanket and stood up.  “Mr. Howard, I don’t think you’d understand.  I’ve had a rather terrible year.”

            “From all the drama you’ve alluded to, you’ve been having a rather terrible life.  And I’ve had it.  I knew I shouldn’t have hired a wild card.  Are you going to be returning to your job?  Can I expect you to get over—whatever happened THIS time—and bring me some stories?”

            “No.”

            “Then you’re fired.”

            “ _What?_ ”

            “Melchior,” Howard groaned.  “The world does not revolve around you.  If you’re having problems, we do not stop living.  Now, I don’t know what happened to you this time around, but I don’t want any more of your work.”

            Melchior looked furious: his eyes were positively burning with anger, but instead of swinging a punch or throwing something, he simply got back to the couch.  “Goodbye, Mr. Howard.”  
            “Melchior?”

            He did not answer.

            “Melchior?” Howard repeated.  “Take it from someone older and wiser.  Take it from someone who, like everyone else, has been knocked down by life quite a few times.  You are someone who’s been knocked down more than others, I can tell.  And take it from someone who considers you like a son.”

            Melchior did not turn around.  Regardless, Howard knelt beside the couch.  “I know you are someone special.  You’ve been mistreated, you’ve been beat up, but you are so much more than your wildest dreams—and your nightmares.  Your life, NO ONE’S life, is meant to be wasted like this.  Your life is for better things.  And I am firing you because those better things are waiting out there to be done.  So get off your couch, get out of your apartment, and face the world like a real man.  Leave all this self-pity behind.”

            “She’s gone,” Melchior whispered feebly, like a child.  “He’s gone, too.”

            “Who?”

            “All of them!”

            “But they aren’t you, Melchior,” he said.  “Please, just listen to me.  Don’t do this to yourself anymore.  Something tells me you’ve done this to yourself for too long already.”  
            “Five years,” he smiled faintly, “is certainly is a long time.”

            “Get your act together, Gabor.  Or don’t show your face in my office again.”

            “I thought I was fired?”

            “You are.  But if you ever want my help again, or value our friendship at all, you’ll put an end to this, once and for all.”

 

            Howard left, and Melchior was back to being alone again.  He’d literally just lost everything in his life.  His job was another thing to add to the list.

            But for some reason, he didn’t want to complain about it anymore.

            Shaking his head free of dark shadows, he looked dubiously at the bottle and threw it away.  Like he said, he wasn’t a big drinker. 

            So, he didn’t want to wallow anymore.  That was a step.  But what now?  
            He could always read.  Reading was easy.  Reading took his mind off things.

            After searching a few piles of old books he’d read before, he reluctantly opened the gilded copy of _Great Expectations_.  And almost instantaneously, he felt it was the best choice.

            A biting ache in his heart as he read reminded him of Gemma, whom he imagined would have been slung over his shoulder, reading with him.

            Melchior allowed the suspenseful story to sweep him in, pushing past his analytical tendencies to just enjoy the book like he had to first time around.  Pip’s humble yet mysterious beginnings and journey to becoming a gentleman, along with his winding obsession over Estella, were entertaining to no end.  He allowed Dickens’ tale to consume him, which helped when the images and thoughts of Gemma entered his mind.

            “I love this part,” she would have whispered into his ear.

            “You love every part,” he would have replied. 

            And when he got _there_ , he wasn’t expecting a thing.  This passage hadn’t moved him the first time around: Magwitch’s tale had interested him more than Pip’s pining after Estella.  But the chapter came when Estella announced her engagement to Drummle, and Pip protested.

            And Melchior’s heart caught in his throat when he read Pip’s impassioned speech to her:

 

“Out of my thoughts?!  You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen - on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. To the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But in this separation, I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm. Let me feel now what sharp distress I may.”

 

            “Gemma,” he choked.  “Gemma!”  And what he saw after that made his heart beat all the harder. 

            The top of the page he’d read, with Pip’s ultimate words on the love of his love, had been folded as a bookmark.

            Gemma had folded this particular page.  And this page, though it seemed silly to remember, hadn’t been folded at the top when he’d read it the first time.  Since their meeting at her house, at some point, she’d had to have read it again and bookmarked that particular page.

            And, once again, if his memory wasn’t faulty, those books hadn’t been on her nightstand the night he’d almost kissed her at the party.

            It was stupid and full of holes at best: he was grasping at straws in his mind to come up with excuses.  Of course his mind wanted him to think that she’d bookmarked the page while thinking of him before she ran away.  She probably had done so long ago, or done so after the day he’d told her he loved her, and thought better of it later.

            Still, this epiphany of sorts brought such elation that his mind was blind to reason.  Melchior Gabor’s hope was renewed: somehow, somewhere, Gemma Keeper still felt something for him, and he’d go to the ends of the earth to find her and bring her back.  Even if she didn’t want to see him.

            He would die without her.  So, all there was to do was to listen to Mr. Howard and do what he was meant to do with his life.  He’d always felt that it was his job to recreate the world and make it a better place for everyone, even before Wendla had died.  Now, he knew he couldn’t make the world a better place if he didn’t have her by his side. 

            He was resolved: Melchior Gabor was going to go looking for her, however fruitless the search might be.  He was never going to give up, and when he found her, he wouldn’t care.  She could push him away, she could tell him she was broken or fin without him, but he’d take all the time in the world to bring her back to him.  He was never going to stop loving her.

            And he still felt for Wendla.  He knew now he’d always love Wendla and feel guilty for her death, but he understood now that Wendla’s death was supposed to be the starting point for his life.  Her death would provide him with the lesson and maturity to truly become a better person, and Gemma was Wendla’s gift, in a way, to him: someone to push him into the life he was always meant to lead.  A thank you for the years he’d spent mourning her, but a reminder that he was meant for better things.

            Gemma was out there somewhere.  And if it took him forever, he’d find her. 

            He grabbed clothes and all the money he had and stuffed them into a bag, put on his coat and winter clothes, and nodded a final goodbye to his apartment after grabbing her books. 

           

            It was almost a sign from up above that this was what he was supposed to be doing when he got to the bank and withdrew the rest of his money—and Fiff was waiting on the steps of the bank.

            “Fiff!” he yelled, running to the boy faster than he’d ever run in his life and hugging him.

            “Melchi?” he asked.  “What’s goin’ on?”

            “What’s going on?  What are you DOING here, you darling, wonderful, dear boy?”  
            “Well…I was begging here earlier today, but something told me to stick around after lunch.”

            “That’s why you should always trust your gut, you incredible kid,” Melchior said, eyes shining.  “I’m so glad to see you.  I’m so sorry for everything I did to push you away.  I’ve gone through a lot that made me the way I was, but it wasn’t an excuse, it never was.”

            “What happened to ya?” Fiff asked, raising an eyebrow and holding the older boy’s hand as they made their way down the twilit street. 

            “An epiphany of sorts.”

            “A what?”

            “Fiff, I love you.”

            “WHAT?”  
            “You really are the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, and I didn’t deserve such a good thing in my life.  I didn’t know what I had, but I do now.  And Fiff,” he said, kneeling down to his eye level.  “Fiff, I am going to look for Gemma.  And I will never stop looking, but I’d really like it if you came with me.”

            “So you know she ran away, then?  I was going to tell ya…one day.”  Fiff paused, looking serious for a moment before bursting into a huge grin.  “Of course I’ll go with you, I couldn’t think of a better thing to do!  I really was goin’ to come back, but I was so angry at you before.”

            “That’s over now.  Come on,” Melchior said, hugging the boy once more before giving him a piggyback ride down the street.  “We’re going to the train station and starting wherever we think if best.  And then, when we find Gemma, I am going to ask her to marry me.”

            “Really?!??”

            “That is, if she’ll have me.  And I warn you, I’m NOT the marriage type, and I never was.  I still don’t know how I feel about it, but it’s got to happen.  I’m going to marry her if she’ll have me.”

            “She’ll have you,” Fiff laughed.  “She’ll have you, all right.”

            “And then, if she says yes, we’ll get married.  And _then_ , we are going to go somewhere away from all this, wherever she wants us to go, and Gemma and I are going to adopt you.”

            “REALLY?!”

            “Are you surprised?”

            “No,” Fiff admitted, hugging Melchior tightly from behind.  “Just happy.  I’ve never been happier in my life.  You’re going to be my dad?”

            “Yes, your dad.  However weird that sounds.  Your dad who’s eight years older than you and your mother who’s only six years older than you.”

            “Eh, you know what?  I’ll take you two anyway.  Who needs a _normal_ family, right?”


	27. Chapter 27

Two months passed.

 

They say that when you’re in love, the days seem to fly by.  Melchior would disagree: he felt every day pass.  The difference was he was patient.  Four months might seem like a long time, but the years it could take them to find her would be longer.

 

His nightmares didn’t go away, but they reflected his new priorities.  Wendla and Moritz still haunted him in various forms, with Wendla dominating his dreams.  Gemma and Fiff joined in the dreams, and he had all four to worry about, though two were dead and one was with him already.

 

He was weary already.  They’d started up in Maine, searching for word of any kind, and worked their way down the coast.  Fiff kept him company as always, growing every day in his heart.  They really were a happy pair together, but her absence took its toll on them both.  Melchior had woken up from nightmares to find Fiff crying over both of them on several occasions. 

 

He read both books to Fiff each night.  They never tired of them: somehow, by reading them, it brought them closer to Gemma.

 

Somehow, things didn’t seem hopeless.  They followed leads everywhere, and they never found a trace, but it all seemed worth it.  Eventually, the dead ends would lead them to her.  Eventually.

 

They’d worked halfway through Melchior’s cash, which was a worry.  But it was the least of them.

 

Melchior didn’t know, how could he know, if Gemma was all right.  He didn’t know anything.  She could be dead by know.  She could have been kidnapped.  She could be resting on an island beach in Fiji, laughing at them.  She could be huddled and cold in Canada, worrying about them as much as they did about her.

 

He liked to think that she was out there, somewhere nearby, feeling that they were close and instantly being drawn to them.  It didn’t matter, as long as they found her.

 

As long as they found her.

 

            “When did you realize it?” Fiff asked one day, somewhere in Ohio. 

            Melchior had been looking out on the stars from the hotel window.  “Realize what, honey?”

            Fiff smiled at this new term of endearment.  They still sounded strange coming from Melchior, but right all the same.  “When did you realize you were in love with her?”

            “Good question.  I don’t even know if I can answer that.”  Melchior tossed one of her books up in the air before opening it up to read.  “When did you realize it?”

            “What?  That my two best friends had the hots for each other?”

            “Interesting way of putting it.  Go ahead.”

            “Wellllll,” Fiff said, drawing out the word before bouncing onto the bed with him, getting ready for the story.  “I think it was that…that one day when I went out to grab some more paper for you two when you were writing that piece on the robber?  I came back, and you two were staring at each other across the table.  You were teasing each other, of course, but just the way you were looking at each other, I guess.”

            “Hmm.”  Melchior found the chapter they were on while thinking about this.  “Where were we?”


	28. Chapter 28

“You really think we should try here?” Fiff asked, excessively bored as Melchior tried to get him to go into yet another bar.  “We can go into every bar in the country and still not find her in one of those.  And why would she even be in a bar?”  
            “It’s the only lead we have,” Melchior said optimistically, sounding slightly annoying after two months of positive thinking.  “She wasn’t afraid of bars, and pubs usually have hotels with them, too.  She wouldn’t have run away and hid in a barn somewhere.”

            “Says you.”

            “Eh, we know Gemma.  She can be a little high maintenance.”

            The boys entered the bar and were relieved to find it a relatively nice place: there were windows and clean floors, and a reasonable amount of light streamed in from the day outside.  It could have been a quaint old restaurant.

            “Okay, then,” Melchior said, stepping up to the bartender.  “Excuse me, sir?”

            “Hmmph?”

            “I’m looking for a friend of mine.  Her name is Gemma Keeper?  Maybe you’ve seen her around here?”

            The old bartender looked at Melchior through filmy eyes.  “Gemma Keeper?”

            “Yes, yes, er…she was about a foot shorter than me, with long brown hair…huge grey eyes?  I mean, really huge…” Melchior said, still not tired of the description he’d given to hundreds of others.

            “Haven’t seen her.”

            “Oh.  Thank you.”

            “Will you be wanting anything to drink, then?”

            “N-no, thank you,” Melchior said, returning to Fiff at the door. 

            “You know,” a voice called from further back, “a picture would help you out a lot better than a vague description of some girl you know.”

            “I don’t have a picture—” Melchior began, turning to see the unknown voice and then doubling over in shock at their identity.  “Harry?  Harry MADISON?”

            The man in question nodded anxiously, gesturing them over to his table in back.  “We need to talk, I think.”

            Melchior knew Harry wasn’t the sort of man to hurt them or threaten them; still, he was uneasy as he approached him with Fiff in tow.  “What are you doing here, Harry?”

            “Same thing as you, I suppose,” Harry said with a sigh.  “I’ve been looking for Gemma for a month now, despite the Keepers’ many protests.”

            “Protests?”

            “They don’t want her ruined,” he explained, rubbing his temples.  “Her reputation—if New York were to know she ran away from an engagement—would be in shambles.  They’re trying to hush it up and say that she’s sick and taking the air in Switzerland.”

            Melchior took a good look at Harry before talking.  The bright young man seemed to be tired and exasperated.  “Have you had any luck?”

            “No.  Have you?”

            “No.”

            “You’re Melchior Gabor, aren’t you?” he asked abruptly.  “I never forget a face.  I knew I recognized you at the party, I just didn’t remember your name.  I do, now.  You were there with Gemma’s book back in October.”

            “Yes.  Gemma and I have been…friends for a few months now.”

            “When she was off being a journalist?”  
            “How’d ya know THAT?” interjected Fiff.

            Harry flashed him an indulgent smile.  “Annie told me everything, Philip Martin.  Or should I just call you Fiff?”

            The little boy could only gasp.  “He knows too much!”

            Melchior couldn’t help but laugh.  “No, he knows just enough.  It’s good that he knows about it, I think.  What are your thoughts about all this, if I may ask, Harry?”

            “Honestly?  I’m not really surprised,” Harry said a little sadly.  “Gemma was a fiery one underneath it all.  I understood immediately when Annie told me she’d been sneaking out for little trips; it sounded exactly like something she’d do.  I’d say I know her better than a lot of people, even though she wouldn’t admit it.”

            “Why is that?”

            “My brother married her sister, a rare love match, I think.  We got to know each other over wedding proceedings, and I already knew how bored she was with all the stuffy upper class trappings.  It was only a matter of time.  She used to read _Huckleberry Finn_ back then and imagine running away on a raft down the Hudson.”

            Melchior found himself starved for information on her now, as he knew almost nothing of her past.  “Did you know you were going to marry her then?”

            “There was an idea, yes.  Of course, it’s going to be pretty hard to marry her when you find her and marry her yourself.”

            Melchior was silent.  “You know?”

            “It wasn’t hard to guess.”

            The German boy resisted the urge to squeak, instead maintaining his composure for he sake of looking at least a little competent.  “And your feelings on that?”

            Harry, though distressed, gave him a huge smile.  “I’m very happy for you both.”

            “ _What_?”

            “You must understand,” Harry rushed to explain, “I love her, too.  I’ll admit to you that I’m not in love with her like you are, but I care deeply for her and was looking forward to our marriage.  Knowing she’s out there frightens me.  I want to find her and make sure she’s safe as soon as possible, which is why I’m out here looking for her.  At least I acknowledge that she prefers someone else, and in doing so, I guess she frees me.”

            Melchior looked terrified.

            “I’m not lying, you know.  You’re free to be as in love with her as you please without offending her fiancé.”

            “That’s very nice of ya, Mr. Madison,” Fiff breathed. 

            “I know,” Harry smirked in return.  “I am a gentleman, after all.  But good luck to the two of you, and I hope she finds you first.  Especially before her parents find her.”

            Melchior shook the young man’s hand.  “Thank you for everything, Harry.  I promise to take good care of her.  You take care of yourself, too.”

            “You as well.  Oh, and Melchior?” Harry said as the pair began to leave.  “There’s something you should know.”

            “What is that?”

            “There may be…erm, there may be a warrant for your arrests,” he mumbled, extremely embarrassed.

            “WHAT?  You sent the police after us?”

            “It wasn’t me!  I heard only a few weeks ago that they’ve charged you two with kidnapping her.  I don’t know where the charged originated, but it’s getting spread around the police forces on the coast.  They’ll be looking for you.”

            “I thought they wanted to keep this whole affair a secret,” Melchior said through gritted teeth.

            “Only the police know about it.  I think the Keepers think it will get them closer to Gemma if they find you.  But I didn’t tell them about you, I swear.  I don’t think Annie gave you up, either.”

            Melchior wanted desperately to believe that Harry was insanely jealous of him.  He wanted to believe that Harry had accused them of kidnapping Gemma out of spite and hated him still.  But he had to face facts: Harry wasn’t hard to read.  He’d always appeared to be a kind, loyal, fun-loving gentleman, and being so rich and so smart, there wasn’t a reason for him not to have a positive attitude.

            Even now, with his obvious distress at her disappearance, he was still the honest and positive man he’d always been.  Melchior believed him.

            “Thank you,” he said carefully, “for telling us.  Fiff and I will take special care.  You know, at the very least, that we didn’t take her.”

            “And I’ll be willing to vouch for you should you ever need it,” Harry returned with a pleasant smile.  “Good luck.”

           

            “What did ya think of all that?” Fiff whispered when they left the pub.  “Was he telling the truth?”

            Melchior closed his eyes in frustration.  “I don’t want to think about it, because I’m pretty sure he was.  For goodness’ sake, we have the police on our tail now!  We did nothing wrong here!”

            “Maybe we’ll find her before that,” Fiff reminded him.  “We can all get away.  And if not, Harry said he’d help us.”

            Melchior didn’t answer, simply tugging Fiff along the hot streets.  It was only April, but in North Carolina things were already heating up.  They’d abandoned their coats long ago.

            “We’re not really any closer to finding her, are we?” he said finally, sitting down in a field they passed a few minutes later.

            Fiff flopped down next to him, not minding the itchy, dry grass on his arms.  “Does it matter if we’re not going to stop looking?” he asked in reply.

            “I guess it doesn’t.  Are you hungry?”  
            “No.”

            The two boys lay down in the field, looking up at the wispy clouds.  Fiff sneaked a few glances at Melchior, who had his hands folded on his chest and was looking intently at the clouds with a furrowed brow.

            _This is getting to him_ , Fiff thought.  _He’s starting to get real impatient for her_.

            “Melchior?” he asked out loud, causing the older boy to turn his head.  “I think we should go back to New York.”

            “What?  Why?”

            “Well,” Fiff said, sitting up.  “I think she might be there.”

            “Why would she be in New York City of all places?”

            “I dunno.  It’s what my gut is telling me.  Didn’t you say to listen to it?”

            Melchior groaned and got up.  “We go back to the place where the police will actually be looking for us already, based on a hunch?”

            “Have you ever had a hunch?” Fiff asked.  “They’re powerful stuff, they are!  And look, it makes sense.  Where’s the last place you’d expect her to be?  The place she ran away from!   And if you think about it, I don’t think she would have gone so far away from us without an explanation.  What if she stayed in the area?  She had a ton of places she already knew she could hide in!”  
            “Do you really want to go?”

            “I do!”  
            “All right, then, let’s go.”

            “But I—wait, what?!” Fiff asked, incredulous.  “Really?  You believe me?”

            Melchior shrugged.  “We’re not doing anything else, are we?  A hunch is more of a lead than anything else we’re going on.”

            Fiff tackled him with a huge hug and they rushed to the train station together, not hesitating to buy two tickets to New York City on the next train.


	29. Chapter 29

_This is a terrible idea_ , Melchior told himself as Fiff lolled to sleep.  The train kept a steady rocking motion going that had Fiff out in a minute, and he could only smile at how easily a train had gotten the little boy to sleep.  Nights, he couldn’t fall asleep without reading and talking to Melchior for at least an hour.

            _They’ll be looking for you in the city.  You’ll be arrested, just like Harry told you_. 

            Melchior grumbled at the snarky voice of reason in his head: Fiff had at least a little bit of logic, and it was more sound than literally going through every state, combing them for Gemma.

            He hadn’t gotten bored or tired of this search, to be honest.  He’d made the promise to search forever if he had to, and Fiff made a similar promise.  It was just the separation that was getting to him.  Every day without her made his memory somehow sharper.  He could recall every freckle and each degree of her smile.  And remembering her made it harder to go without her.

            So was it stupid to go back to New York City?  Of course.  It was ludicrous.  But Fiff’s instincts had always been good, and if they were careful, they had the potential to leave the city unscathed.

           

            “Cor,” Fiff breathed when they entered Grand Central Station, “am I crazy or did it get darker here while we were away?”

            Melchior glanced at the ceiling of the station: through the glass panes, he could see a few rumbling storm clouds.  “You know what they say about April showers.  Come on, Hunchman, where to?  Did you have a particular place to check?”

            “Erm, Red Fish, Keeper Mansion, Central Park, your house, my alley?” Fiff rattled off a few places distractedly, marveling at the interior of the station.  “This place is beautiful.  I can’t believe I’ve never been here before!”

            “It is a stellar architectural achievement,” Melchior agreed, acknowledging the star-covered ceilings and arches.  “Would you like to build things like this, one day?”

            “Maybe.  I’d build right pretty things, too.  Off to the Red Fish, then?”

            Melchior huffed, starting the trek in that direction.  “I guess so.”

           

            They waited in the Red Fish for two hours, even though the bartender hadn’t seen her since January.  They combed through all of Central Park and went back to Melchior’s flat, which though he’d stopped paying rent for it, was still empty and full of his stuff.  Fiff chalked it up to the bad neighborhood.

            They looked in the alley and couldn’t find one of Fiff’s old friends, to his intense distress.  There was only one more place Fiff could guess she could be.

            “She’s not at her own house,” Melchior tried to convince him.  “Trust me.  It’s the last place she’d be.”

            “Which is why she’d be there, of course!” Fiff exclaimed, adamant in his true-blue hunch.  “Why don’t ya trust me?”

            “I do trust you.  I trust her too, which is why I’m guessing she’s not going to be there.”

            “It won’t hurt to check.”

            Melchior had to sprint to follow Fiff’s quick feet, praying that it wouldn’t rain.  He couldn’t take a lot of rain right now. 

            “Come on, slow poke!” called Fiff as he skipped up the steps to the main entrance.  Melchior had to catch his breath in front of the austere looking house.  He hadn’t been back in his city for a whole day and he’d already revisited the spot of several painful memories.  This was her house: where they’d met formally, where they’d danced, where he’d almost kissed her, and where he’d discovered that she had run away from him.

            The boys were let into the still dark house.  “I never thought I’d see you two again,” Annie said excitedly as she opened the door for them.  “I saw you on the street!  What are you doing here?  Don’t you know what they’ve charged you with?”

            “Annie!” Melchior said, grasping her upper arm in greeting.  “We heard.  Kidnapping.”

            “Well, you’ve been missing almost as long as she was, so I assumed you were out searching for her, too.  I don’t know who came up with the charge, honestly.  I’m just glad the police haven’t found you yet.”

            “Yet?”

            “They’re looking for you; they have posters up at the precincts.  Word hasn’t gotten out to the public yet for her sake, but the police are out looking for you.  They know who you are!”

            Melchior resisted the urge to groan at Fiff; the danger here was worse than they’d thought.  Still, nothing they could do about it until they left the state.

            “Annie,” he started, “is she—that is, have you heard anything?”

            “Nothing.  She’s still gone.”

            Fiff’s face fell immediately.  Melchior could feel him trembling next to him.

            He took a deep breath.  “Well, we were just going to check.  Thank you, once again.  We’d better get out of the city before we get arrested.”

            “Can I help you at all?  Is there anything I can do?”

            Melchior smiled weakly.  “I might ask you the same question.”

            “No, I’m fine.  Take care, Melchior.  Take care, Fiff.”

 

            As soon as they left the house, Fiff shot off into apologies.  “I’m real sorry, Melchi.  I was so sure she’d be here, and it turns out there’s no sign of her!  And now we’re being searched for, and it’s all my fault!”

            “No, it’s not,” Melchior assured him.  “It was just as good a place to look as any.”

            They started walking down gloomy 5th Avenue, with Fiff clinging closely to Melchior.  “I really am sorry.  We wasted time, and now we’re in danger.”

            “You don’t need to be sorry, dear.  It’s all going to be fine, okay?” Melchior stooped down to Fiff’s level.  “We keep looking like we always have.  And I think I know where we should go.”

            “Where?”

            “Staten Island.  Come on,” Melchior said, leading Fiff, as always, by the hand.  “We’re going to check out ticket prices for a voyage.”

            “A voyage?  Where?”

            “Wherever she went.  I think we might want to consider…going abroad to find Gemma.  She could have gone to London, that’s where Dickens lived and Pip and Scrooge lived in his books.  And Paris is where her sister always wanted to go to sing.  She could have chosen to take herself out of the picture entirely by going to a different country.”

            Fiff brightened.  “The Staten Island ferries?”

            “The Staten Island ferries.”

           

            Melchior didn’t want to do it.  America was supposed to be safe, an ocean away from Germany.  It was progressive and loud and quick and full of…different things.  Germany, his Germany, was still quaint and slow, almost living in a dream or fantasy.  Being in Europe again would bring him too close to his past, and to Wendla and Moritz. 

            Still, it was a possibility she HAD gone to London.  It seemed like a place she’d love to go, with all the infamous bustle.  Almost another New York City.  And Fiff would enjoy the change of scenery, and they’d be thousands of miles away from the police.  America wasn’t necessarily safe anymore for them. 

            Melchior didn’t want to check out ferry prices or consider a trip abroad.  But off they went anyway.  He almost lost his nerve at the sight of the choppy black water they crossed in the ferry, but Fiff waved frantically at the Statue of Liberty and smiled like an angel the entire time, so he didn’t complain. 

            _This will be a new beginning_ , he resolved when they entered the crowded ferry station on the island, looking at the voyage lists and ticket prices.  _And we won’t stop until we find her_. 

            “Where to, do ya think?” Fiff asked.  “There’s a ship next week for London, if I’m readin’ that correctly.”

            “You are.”  Melchior considered jumping on a ship at that moment.  After all, there were literally no ties here, and they’d brought all they needed.  He went through his knapsack just to make sure: what was left of his money, extra clothes, and Gemma’s books.  “Let’s sit down, all right?”

           

            There are a lot of different people that bustle in and out of the Staten Island Ferry Station each day: people returning, people setting off, cultures and fabric and faces everywhere.  An artist’s dream and nightmare.  Thousands of people a day.  Hundreds in the giant, cavernous station at a time. 

            Fiff saw her first, but he didn’t recognize her.

            Melchior took a few moments, sitting on one of the wooden benches, to collect his thoughts.  A trip to London would be expensive, and he could run out of money quickly.  He’d have to think of a way to make more in a different country.  Maybe it would be better to just stay in the states, and make more money for a full trip.

            But what if she really was somewhere in London?  He promised to never stop looking, after all. 

            He made up his mind to buy the tickets and got up, intending to march straight to the office and buy two for the first ship out to Great Britain.  And then he saw her, too.

            Melchior stumbled, blinking rapidly.  It could always be a trick, his mind making him see exactly what he wanted to see for a second. 

            But she’d been there, he’d seen her: long coat, hat pulled over her face, hair streaming down her back.  Invisible, one of the rest, to everyone in the station.  Virtually undetectable by the police around the entrances, watching the daily traffic move around in the station.

            Her image disappeared in the crowds, and he stood waiting. 

            “ _Melchi_!” Fiff gasped, pointing wildly.

            “I know,” he said.  He choked on her name when he tried to step forward.  After all this searching.  After all this worrying and pain and pushing through it all, because he loved her more than life.

            “G-Gemma?” he said weakly, trying to support himself.  A few tentative steps turned into quicker strides as he pushed through people.  “Gemma?”  
            As he moved in closer, he saw her again; she turned her head in confusion, looking over the heads of people while keeping her coat collar close to her face.  Melchior kept walking, growing stronger with each step.  Everything else was blurry.

            He’d occupied his free time with thoughts of her almost always her.  He thought of what he’d do when they were all together again.  But for some reason, he’d never, not once, thought of what he’d actually do when he found her.

            He lost track of where Fiff was and trusted he’d be right behind him.  Gemma had turned back away from them, hiking her collar up so her face was hidden further.  She was only a few yards away, waiting in line to get on one of the boats, and holding a suitcase. 

            She had been about to leave.

            Melchior tripped and let himself fall on the ground, watching from the floor of the station.  She looked so tired, with circles under her eyes and loose-looking hair.  Even her build was a lot bonier and skinnier.

            But she was still the most gorgeous, precious thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.  He got up off the floor and called out to her with as much composure as he could muster.  Pulling out _Great Expectations_ , he held it out to her, though she was turned away from him.  “Miss Keeper, I think I have your book!”

           

            She dropped the suitcase.

            Melchior saw her stiffen, a child getting caught stealing cookies from a jar.  Then, slowly, like moving through water, she turned to face him.

            Melchior watched as her eyes crinkled in confusion at the sight of him, standing stock still in a crowd of people pushing him and nudging him along.  He remained where he was, holding out the novel as an offering, waiting for her next move.

            He wanted nothing more than to run to her, hold her, tackle her if he must; she couldn’t get on the ship, and she couldn’t run away again even if seeing him for the first time in four months couldn’t persuade her to stay.

            Still, he waited: he had no idea what to expect of the girl who’d run away from him.

            Her face went white with shock, and she reached out to him tentatively across the distance, as if to touch him.  Thinking better of it, she withdrew her hand and hugged herself, looking thoroughly frightened and confused.

            “Were you really going to leave your favorite book behind?” he asked, knowing she’d hear.  “How could you survive so long without Dickens?”           

            She bit her lip, and she unconsciously responded: “Victor Hugo novels.”

            Melchior chuckled lightly and extended his hand further, letting the book catch the light that came in through the glass ceiling. 

            “Is it really you?” she asked over the din as the line pushed around her.  “It is you, isn’t it?  Melchi?”

            He didn’t have the chance to nod: he came running at her full force and pushed past everyone who got in his way.  This was Gemma, this was the girl of his dreams, the woman he loved, the person he’d searched for for months now with no results.  Fate had led him on a wild goose chase that ended with him almost missing his chance to grab her before she left without a trace, but he’d found her nonetheless.  He’d be damned if someone tried to stop him from taking what was his.

            The second he broke into a run, she dropped everything and ran to him as well, pushing and shoving the crowd around as well until finally, FINALLY, they met in the middle.

            The moment she touched him, Melchior breathed a sigh of relief: none of this was a dream, and she really was back.

            Everything happened very quickly after that.  Melchior felt his mind blank as she hit him full force, and he saw himself hug her and hold her and spin her around in the air. Melchior couldn’t hear what she was saying or what he was saying, nor could he distinguish any of his feelings.  Things were too crowded and loud for him to figure things out.

            A shrill whistle cut through the air, however, and his blood turned cold.  He could sense something was wrong, and his suspicions were confirmed as some unseen force pulled him off and away from Gemma.  He kicked and pushed blindly, vision blurry with tears, but things were happening too quickly for him to understand.  Men were all around them, pulling them each away from each other by the arms.

            “Police!” he realized, and he fought all the harder against them, thrashing and focusing his vision on Gemma, who pushed against her police as well.  Her hair went flying around her, tangling in her face as she screeched and gnashed her teeth.

            “You’re under arrest, Melchior Gabor, for the kidnapping of Gemma Keeper!”

            “NO!” he bellowed, freeing an arm and shoving the stronger arms away.  “Gemma!”  
            Nothing made sense, everything was panic and chaos: Gemma was in front of him, in pain and fighting against two burly police officers who roughly pulled her away from him.  Her protests were ignored, her outstretched arms pulled away. 

            “No!” he repeated constantly.  “No!  No, no!  Gemma!”

            Melchior heard an unearthly yell from behind him, and he called out to the source: “Fiff!  FIFF!”

            “Melchior!” the little boy screamed somewhere behind him, and Melchior shoved to turn around and tell him to run when he heard Fiff ferociously attack one of the police officers.  He struggled to see the boy and get him to run far away, but all he could do was push and listen: Fiff grunted and hissed like a wildcat, causing yelps from the officer.

            Then there was an odd thump on the floor.  Then there was a piercing crunching noise.

            Melchior froze and connected eyes with Gemma before hers rolled into the back of her head, and he slipped into unconsciousness himself.


	30. Chapter 30

_No, no, no, no, no, no…_

It was all Melchior could think.  No.  It hadn’t happened.  They’d never gone to the ferry station.  He and Fiff were asleep somewhere in South Carolina.  It was the blistering April sun of the south.  It had messed with his mind.  Gemma hadn’t really been there.  He hadn’t been arrested.

            He hadn’t heard that dreadful, sickening, fatal crunch.

            Of course, the dank jail cell he was huddled in pointed to the obvious: he could deny it all he wanted, but the cold metal bars that caged him in and kept him alone in the dark proved it all to be true.

            For that one instant, Gemma had been there.  He hadn’t been able to talk to her or see if she was all right, but he’d been able to touch her and hold her, even if his memory was blurry with the emotions he’d been carrying in that moment.

            Then they’d been pulled apart.  The police had seen their reunion and somehow recognized him.  They’d taken them apart, and Fiff, incredible, valiant, pure Fiff, had attempted to help his friends. 

            _Fiff.  FIFF.  No, no, no, no, no, no, NO…_

He hadn’t seen it.  He’d only heard the sound, the wholly unnatural sound that could only mean something irreversible, and he’d seen Gemma’s face. 

            The sound a head made when it met a marble floor.  _No, no, no_.

            _Fiff, forgive me_.  _I shouldn’t have gone over to see her without you with me.  I shouldn’t have fought the police.  I shouldn’t have…no, no, no…Fiff…_

            “Well?” Wilhelmina asked tersely, waiting at her bedroom door when the doctor came out.  “How is she?”

            “She shows signs of extreme fatigue and general hunger.  She hadn’t been taking good care of herself, wherever she went,” the old man explained.  “As for now, she can’t stop crying or screaming.”

            A heart-wrenching wail left the room as if to emphasize the point. 

            “I’ll administer a sedative if it doesn’t stop soon,” the doctor continued, tipping his hat to the lady before going downstairs.  Wilhelmina watched her daughter from the doorway, getting angrier with each heaving sob Gemma went through. 

            “Mrs. Keeper,” a bright voice called from down the stairs.

            “Harry, thank goodness!” she answered.  “Come upstairs, and quickly.”

            Harry Madison practically flew up the stairs, discarding coat and hat on the way.  “I came as soon as I heard.  Where did they find her?”

            “Staten Island, about to board a ship to Spain.  Spain, can you imagine?  Oh, Harry, it’s just too terrible!  I can’t deal with it, I don’t know what to do about it!”

            “Let me speak to her, please,” Harry pleaded.  “I can help calm her down, I think.”

            She was quivering under her blankets on her bed, and she looked childlike in the low light of the room.  Harry turned up a lamp and sat down on the bed with her.  “Oh, Gemkat,” he sighed, patting her messy hair.  “I’m sorry they found you.  You don’t have to cry about it, though, I won’t let this happen again.  I’ll break off the engagement and let you go away!”

            She looked up at him, face flushed and swollen with crying.  “H-H-Harry?”

            “Yes, darling.  I’m here.  It’s not that bad, it really isn’t.  I’m just thankful you were okay when they found you, I thought for months someone had stolen you away or killed you.”

            “H-Harry, M-M-M-Mel—”

            “I know about Melchior, too.  I’ll send people out to look for him, if you want.  I saw him in North Carolina yesterday, and he couldn’t have gotten that far.”

            “Mel-Melchior found m-me, a-a-at the sta-station—“ she tried to explain between sobs.  “P-p-police were e-everywhere—F-f-f-Fiff was trying to help, he was too sm-small—”

            “Wait, what?  Gemma, what happened?  I didn’t hear about any of this!”

            Gemma burst into further sobs, burying her head in Harry’s shoulder.  He patted her on the back awkwardly until she drifted into a sort of numbness, slipping off his shoulder and quivering still.

            “That’s all she can do,” Wilhelmina said from the doorway.  “She goes from crying and screaming to complete silence.  I fear she’s gone mad.”

            “She’s not mad,” Harry assured her as Annie sped up the stairs.  “Annie?  Do you know what happened?”

            “Only bits and pieces, sir,” she said.  “Melchior and Fiff were at the station too, and they found her before she left.  The police caught them together, I think, and tried to arrest Gabor.”

            “And the little one?  Fiff?”  
            “Erm…someone said he tried to pull the police off his friends, and one shoved him away…only he pushed a little too hard, and Fiff…”

            Harry covered his mouth in horror.  “Did he make it?”  
            “No.  It was instantaneous.  He hit the ground so fast, there wasn’t any pain.”

            “Does she know?”

            “I think she might have guessed.  She saw it happen, after all.”

            Wilhelmina broke into the conversation.  “This is my daughter you’re talking about, and all you’re saying is utter nonsense to me.  Now, Gemma has been missing for months now and we finally get her back safely only to find that these two men were involved, and one of them died in front of her?  You will tell me what is going on.”

            Annie stiffened.  “I…I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell, ma’am.”

            “I’ll tell her on the way to the prison,” Harry volunteered.  “Gemma can blame me later.  We need to get Melchior here, now.”

            “You’re going to bail him out of jail?” Annie asked.  “What about the charges?”

            “I don’t know if I can weasel him out of them until he has a trial.  Come on, Mrs. Keeper, I’ll explain everything to you on the way.”


	31. Chapter 31

_It didn’t happen.  It couldn’t have.  Innocent children don’t just die by accident.  Maybe he just broke a bone.  He could be in the hospital right now._

_Oh, no.  He’ll be terribly frightened when he wakes up in a hospital.  I should go and comfort him.  I should get out of here._

Melchior glanced carelessly around his cell, which was still just as dark after night fell and just as wet and cold.  The steel bars still stared down at him imperiously.  He curled up a little more to hide his face from it all.

            _Gemma will kill me, that I let him get hurt.  I should go to her, too.  She’ll be furious.  I wonder how she’s doing; probably in nervous conniptions.  With Fiff in the hospital, and a broken rib, and all._

_Yes, it had to have been a rib.  Maybe even a leg.  Fiff was alive in the hospital with a broken rib and crying.  He’ll kill me, too, since I left him._

_But they’ll both forgive me.  Because they’re both alive.  Fiff’s alive.  He made it.  Innocent children don’t just die, especially because of a stupid accident._

Light pierced Melchior’s eyes as the outside hall door opened.  He uncurled as he heard the clanking of keys near his cell and stared, dumbfounded, when the bars were pushed away and nothing stood between him and walking right out of the cell.

            As it was, though, he really lacked the energy to stand, so he grumbled and rolled to his side, away from the bars.

            “Melchior!” a familiar voice cried, shaking him instantly from his stupor.

            “Harry!” he called back, scrambling up and out of the cell and into the light.  “What are you doing here?”  
            “We came to bust you out,” Harry replied with a devilish wink.  “I came back to New York as soon as I heard.  And I brought a friend.”

            Melchior was expecting to see Gemma with him, crossing her arms with a ready slap.  The last person he expected to emerge from the shadows of the jail hall was her mother, but here she was, looking grim and pale and staring at him with an unfathomable expression.

            She had to be angry with him, or disgusted by him, depending on how much she knew.  Still, something about the way she crossed her arms and grimaced reminded him of what Gemma might look like when she grew up.

            “Mrs. Keeper,” he greeted her with a slight bow.

            She sighed heavily.  “I know who you are, Melchior Gabor.  Dear Mr. Madison…enlightened me on our trip over here, and don’t think I don’t have plenty to say about it.  But now is not the time.  It appears I owe you a thank you for finding my daughter before she escaped, perhaps forever, without a chance of being found.  I also seem to owe you a thank you for more than that, but I suppose I’ll have the chance to do that later, since you’re obviously not going to be leaving our lives any time soon.”

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well,” he said with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm.  Harry stifled a sad little laugh.  “Would this happen to be a prison break?”

            “No,” Harry said.  “We’re bringing you home.  No one knows where or who originated the kidnapping charges, and we’re never going to know for sure.  I was going to try and interfere with the charges or testify against them, but it seems they’ve been dropped.”

            “Dropped?  They dropped the charges?”

            “It seems that a Mr. Howard did some work behind the scenes and got you off scot free.”

            “Mr. Howard!” Melchior said incredulously.  “Old Mr. Howard, looking out for me even now.  I owe him, big time.”

            “Indeed,” Wilhelmina agreed, beginning to leave the hall for the door.  “However, I’ve now spent twenty minutes in a prison, and that is twenty minutes more than I ever intended.  At least it was for the sake of my daughter.  Come on, now, we’ve work to do.”

            “Work?”

            “You didn’t think we just came to tell you you’re free to go, did you?  I have a hysterical daughter with a ruined reputation at home, and it would appear you’re the only person in the entire city who can help me.”

            “Gemma?  What’s wrong with her?” Melchior asked urgently, but Wilhelmina waved away the question and exited the prison with the boys in tow.

            Harry rolled her eyes at Wilhelmina’s lack of response.  “Gem’s really bad.  She got really torn up about being found, and you being arrested, and…”

            “And what?”

            Harry looked away.

            “Harry, just tell me.  You can tell me, I won’t break down.  I’ve had hours in jail to break down already.  Just tell me.”

            “I don’t think I can,” he responded, entering the carriage after Gemma’s mother.  Melchior followed them and waited patiently for an explanation as the carriage took off in the New York night.

            “You can.  You’re the only person who’d give it to me straight.”

            Harry gulped.  “Fiff’s dead.”

           

            _No no no no no no no no no…._

“Melchior?"

            The young man blew air through his teeth.  _Push through it.  You said you would.  Push through it, because they need you to push through it._

            “Was it quick?” he asked tersely.

            “Instantaneous.  He didn’t feel a thing.  A police officer was just trying to shake him off, but he shoved a little too hard, and the boy hit the marble floor too fast—”

            “I get it,” wheezed Melchior.  “Where is…the body?”

            “General hospital in the area.”  
            “And Gemma?”  
            “Inconsolable.  At least, that’s what everyone thinks, but I’m sure if she saw you, or would talk to you, she’d be a lot better off.  She needs someone who understands.”

            Melchior grimaced.  “Yes, I understand plenty, I suppose.”

            Harry nodded weakly and focused his attention on the carriage window.  Wilhelmina could only be bothered to tell Melchior sternly, “Don’t think that I don’t have a lot to say to you, Mr. Gabor.  You’ve been having secret dalliances with my daughter and some poor boy from the streets for months now.  We will talk.  Later, perhaps, when Gemma is well, but we will talk.”

            Melchior nodded in agreement and relaxed a little, trying to steel himself up before seeing her.

            _Fiff is gone.  He’s with Wendla and Moritz now, up in heaven._

            Melchior remembered he didn’t believe in heaven, or anything; now was the time to abandon atheism if there ever was a time. He made a mental note to later reconsider being an atheist, but more pressing matters were at hand.

            _Gemma is alive, and she can’t deal with any of this.  She couldn’t deal with it with Fiff alive, and she ran away.  She doesn’t have an escape now.  I have to be strong in front of her._

He repeated this mantra all the way to the mansion, all the way up the stairs, and into the hall.

            “Melchior!  Thank goodness you’re here!” exclaimed Annie on meeting him.

            “How is she?” he asked, all business when he heard the wails and sobs coming from upstairs.

            “No change.”

            “We’ll see about that,” he returned, going up the stairs without another word.  _I have to be strong in front of her.  I have to be strong for her.  I have to be strong for the both of us._

            He called for her even before he reached the door.  “Gemma!”

            He heard a hiccup from the sobs inside.  “M-Melchior?”

            And he was running into her room, pausing to look at her before he practically dove into bed with her.  She was almost a banshee, shrouded by the creamy bed curtains with the lights down low, and her face seemed hollow.  Gemma looked terrifying.

            But she was still beautiful, and she was still his. 

            “Y-y-you came?” asked Gemma fearfully, holding a shaking hand out to him.

            “Did you think anything would stop me?”

            “Yes.  M-m-me.”

            “That,” he said, “is the last thing in the world that could ever keep me away.”

            And then he was there with her, and she was holding onto him and crying as before. 

            “F-F-Fiff, i-is he, is he—is he?”  
            “Shhh, darling,” he whispered.  “Just relax.  Everything will be okay, I promise you.”

            “Y-y-you n-never called m-me d-d-darling bef-fore.”

            “I never got the chance before.”

            “I-I know.  I’m s-s-so s-sorry!”

            “Don’t be.  All is forgiven.”


	32. Chapter 32

“So,” said Harry nervously, tracing patterns on the dining room table before Gemma’s parents.  Wilhelmina looked furious and impatient, as usual, and Mr. Keeper looked absolutely depressed.  Tears were forming at the edges of his eyes already.  “Well, I’m sure you’ve guessed, but I’m breaking off the engagement.”

            “What?!” hissed Wilhelmina.

            “I think it would be…prudent….” Harry tried to explain, but she cut him off.

            “Mr. Madison—Harry—we can deal with this!  Things don’t look well, but this is a good match!  I beg you to reconsider, in a few months we could have a perfect wedding!”

            “She’s not in love with me,” continued Harry, “and I am not in love with her.  I realize this is not something most upper class marriages take into consideration, and maybe it wouldn’t matter.  We could keep an amiable marriage.  But she’s in love with someone else.”

            “I don’t care if she’s in love with Melchior Gabor, he’s an utter stranger without a penny to his name and with a very shady past!  I cannot let this happen!”

            “My dear,” sighed Mr. Keeper, “I believe we must let Mr. Madison make his own decisions.  Thank you, Harry, for everything you’ve done and for not ruining my youngest daughter’s reputation.”

            “I hope to remain a friend to your family,” Harry returned.  “I’ll be back soon to check on her, and on all of you.  Thank you for everything, as well.”

            Wilhelmina fumed and paced around the room in a most unladylike fashion, swishing her thick skirts across the carpets with each step.  John Keeper merely sat down at the head of the table and sighed.  “My dear, you can walk from here to Canada and not change what has happened.”

            “I did walk from here to Canada!  We searched all over the country with a team of private investigators for four months!  John, how can you just let this happen?”

            “Because,” he said simply, “Mr. Madison is right.”

            “Harry is not the girl’s mother!  I just can’t believe all this happened!  And she had every chance of coming back to society without a blemish on her reputation, but now she will surely be ruined: everyone will guess he broke off the engagement because she ran away from him!”  
            “Gemma didn’t run away from Harry,” John tried to counter.  “They were friends.  They still are.  I think what we need to focus on is not what happens now, but what happened to lead us here.”

            “You mean with her secret little trips?  Publishing stories in the New York Times? Thank goodness she used an alias, I don’t think our family name could take any more strain.  Women do not write for the paper, and Keepers do not dress up as boys and escape to the slums.  Imagine what could have happened to her!”

            “Let us be thankful nothing did happen to her.  It seems to me you are worrying more for her reputation than you do for her.”

            “How could you say such a thing?” Wilhelmina cried.  “I love my daughter and only want what’s best for her.  Was trying to arrange a suitable marriage to one of her dear friends so very wrong?  I thought she’d be happiest as Mrs. Madison.  I never considered her secret life in the equation.  She never told us about any of it, and she never told us that she hated it here!”

            “Indeed she did not,” John began slowly, “but was that something she was supposed to tell us as a child, or something that we were supposed to notice as parents?”  
            “I don’t know,” she sighed, sitting down with her husband.  “There are too many fine lines.  You know I love her very much, don’t you?  I love all my children.”

            “I know,” he said fondly, kissing her on the forehead.  “You only want the best futures for them in this day and age.  But neither of us considered what they wanted for themselves.”

            “And why should we?  They’re not old enough or wise enough to know what they want.  John, this is a fact: all families like ours follow the same path.  Were we wrong not to deviate from that?”

            “We’ll never know.  But upstairs our daughter is dealing with something traumatic, and I hope for everyone’s sake this boy is going to be able to help her.”

            “Melchior Gabor,” she laughed bitterly.  “I have quite a few words to say to him.”

            “So do I.”

 

            Anyone who’s ever lost a loved one, especially right in front of their eyes, knows how black life seems.  It gets pointless after a while to try and describe all the emotions and various degrees of crying.  Suffice it to say Gemma cried and kept crying for hours.

            Melchior was patient and unbelievably strong, remarkably not shedding a single tear even in the face of all this heartbreak.  At some points, though, Gemma had to restock on moisture before continuing the waterworks and at least a few of her words were understandable.

            “Shhh…” Melchior kept saying, cradling her like a child even after all these hours.  He still hadn’t gotten uncomfortable.  She hiccupped away a little and attempted to speak.

            “I—I—I owe you—”

            “Sweetheart, you don’t have to talk right now.  Don’t worry yourself.”

            “N-no.  Melchior, I owe y-you an e-explanation.”  
            She straightened up and separated herself completely from Melchior, who sat patiently at the head of the bed.  Like she had before, she tried to collect herself and fix her bedraggled hair, adjust her white nightgown, and wipe her eyes to appear more presentable.

            “M-Melchior, I am s-so-SO sorry that I-I ran away.”

            “Gemma, we don’t have to talk about this—”

            “But w-we do!” she pounded on the pillows.  “L-Let me talk!”

            He obliged her.

            “I-I was working on b-breaking off the eng-engagement,” she began, “b-but nothing was working.  It s-s-seemed like no one w-was l-l-listening!  And I w-was so confused a-about y-y-you, and how I f-felt, and m-my life here, and b-being engaged, and no one was listening to me!  I-I don’t know why, but I just ran away.  I couldn’t think of a-anything else to do.”

            He didn’t say anything.

            She took a deep breath to clear her diction and continued.  “I wish I c-could say that I was strong enough t-to fight for us and for my real l-life, but I’m just…not as s-s-strong as you are.”

            “That’s not true.”

            “It is!  I’m not strong!  I don’t h-have that inner strength other people h-have!  I b-break easily.”

            “You’re the strongest person I know.”

            “B-Be reasonable.  I’m not.  I can’t k-keep anything together.  I couldn’t even m-manage being w-with you!”

            Melchior tried to keep calm.  “If…if you still feel like you can’t manage it, I can go—”

            “NO!” she cried, practically tackling him.  “I-I need you here.  I can’t handle it alone.”

            They were both silent for a while after that, with Gemma’s hiccups and quiet sobs as the only sound.  Melchior watched the night fall deeper over New York through her window, feeling strangely more peaceful than he thought he should be. 

        “Melchior,” she said finally.  “It all happened s-so quickly.  Seeing you again, and then the police—they were everywhere, and you were kicking and fighting against them, and I just w-wanted to help you.  And F—Fi—he just wanted to help you, too, and the officer didn’t see him, he just pushed him down.  A-And I saw him, he winced—and then his head hit the floor, and I heard it.  I knew it, th-then, but no one’s told me.  Can you just tell me…is he dead?”

        “Maybe you should just get some sleep,” he suggested, pulling her closer.  “We can talk in the morning.”

        “So that’s a y-yes,” she said.

        “I’m just worried about you, Gemma.  I don’t want to talk about it until you’re ready.”

        “I’ll n-never be ready, ever.  But don’t worry about m-m-me.”

        “How can I not worry about you?”

        “Worry about us, instead.  F-From now on, everything we do, it must be us, not just y-you or me.  But,” she added, “it was supposed to be…the three of us…never just us two.”

 

            She quieted after that and fell asleep against Melchior’s chest, reminding him of a little girl.  She cried and fussed and finally, after a mess, she fell right asleep.

            It was heartbreaking.  He could feel his heart breaking all over again, new cracks and rips for Fiff’s death added to the lopsided scars from Wendla and Moritz.  He just didn’t think about it: the more he kept himself above all this news, the easier it was to see Gemma fall apart and try and hold her up.

            At least now she was back with him, and safe.  But things weren’t the same flirty and dangerous days of being together, a group, a family.  There would be no more lazy days at his flat, just writing and laughing and talking.  Another thing he’d lost.

            “Melchior?” Annie asked from the door around one in the morning.  “Can I speak to you?”

            He nodded once and slowly set her down on the before swinging his legs over the side and walking to the maid.  “What is it?”

            “I just wanted to ask after you both.  Are you two all right?”

            “That’s a terrible question.”

            “I didn’t mean it that way,” amended Annie.  “What I meant to say was…well, I’ll just come out with it: is Gemma mad?”

            “Mad?  As in crazy?  No, she’s depressed, not mentally ill.”

            “I’m sorry.  I know she’s been through a lot, but I think her parents are worried…her mind was affected.  They’re thinking of getting her a doctor.”  
            “She doesn’t need a doctor, she needs me.  And time.”

            “You got her to fall asleep?”

            “Annie,” Melchior said wearily, “she’s just tired.  And sad.  They need to give her time to grieve over this.  Don’t let them send for a doctor.”

            “And what about you?  How are you coping with this?  I thought he was your friend.”

            “He was much more than my friend,” he said.  “He was going to be my son.  I’ve had to go through this kind of tragedy before, so I’m just handling it better.  For her.”

            Annie nodded.  “Are you going to the funeral service?  Harry’s taken care of it, all of it.”

            “That’s incredibly kind of him, but no.  I don’t think she’s ready for it, and I’m definitely not.”

            “It might be your last chance to see him.”

            “But it isn’t really him, is it?” he asked with a bitter smile.  “He’s gone now.  Don’t let them get a doctor, she’ll stop her fits soon.  And with time, things will get easier for her, and hopefully for both of us.”

            They both turned around abruptly when they heard Gemma’s frail voice call from inside, asking for Melchior.

            “That’s my girl,” he said with a wink.  “Thanks, Annie.”


	33. Chapter 33

Waking up, she’d felt like a baby bird.  The entire room’s creamy coloring, lit by the candles and warmed by her blankets, felt like a giant nest.  She’d felt safe, coddled in a way.

            Gemma straightened up and held herself, smoothing down her nightgown.  Her hair was a hopeless mess: it hung around her face almost like the bird’s nest she’d been thinking about. 

            And then she’d realized she was alone.

            “Melchior?” she called quietly, wishing he’d emerge from the shadows.

            She remembered everything, of course.  But for some reason, she felt empty about it now.  Maybe she could cry about it again in a few hours.

            He entered almost immediately.  “Gemma.  How do you feel?”

            “Lonely,” she replied.  “Come sit with me?”

            Melchior nodded warily, and Gemma recognized the look in his eyes in an instant.  He was scared.  It was like he was approaching a wounded animal, and any moment it could lash out and attack him.  He moved slowly, measuring every movement.  It hurt her feelings, in a way.

            “Aren’t you going to hold me?” she asked, completely serious.  Once again, he nodded and slowly wrapped his arms around her middle.  Frustrated, she shoved both of them down on the bed, so they were lying facing each other.

            “I missed you,” she said.  “Every day, I thought about you.  Every moment.  I thought about both of you, and how sorry I was that I’d left.  But I was too scared to come back.”

            “Scared of what?”

            “Everything.”

            He thought about this.  “I thought of you every day, too.  I went looking for you.  _We_ went looking for you.”

            “I’m so sorry.  This is all my fault.  If I hadn’t run away—”

            “Don’t say it.”

            “If I hadn’t run away, none of this would have happened.  You and I would still be together.  We could be away from all of this by now.  And Fiff wouldn’t have had to d—”

            Melchior silenced her by pressing a furious kiss to her mouth, catching her by surprise.  Granted, it was what she wanted him to do, but she hadn’t kissed him for months.  Now, he was pushing her under him and pulling her close, kissing her more passionately than he’d ever dared to do.

            She relished every short second, tangling her hands in his curls, before he broke away.

            “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have….” said Melchior, highly embarrassed.  She couldn’t even respond, only pulling him back over her and holding him when he’d pulled himself away from her. 

            “Melchior,” she sighed.  “Melchior, Melchior, Melchior.  Where are we now?”

            “What do you mean?” he asked against her shoulder.  He pressed a tentative kiss there as she explained herself.

            “Where are we, I mean, in a relationship?”

            “A relationship?” He was bemused.  “I didn’t think you were going to ask about that.”

            “Of course.  I want to know.  I want to know if…you still care about me.  But I understand if you don’t, with everything I’ve done to you—”

            “I still love you,” he said, cutting her off.  Gemma looked at him incredulously, and he laughed at her widening grey eyes, looking just like they had months ago.  “I’ve always loved you, I didn’t stop just because you went away.  Of course, I was worried you didn’t care about me, and that’s why you left, but I’ll always be in love with you.”

            “Really?”

            “Yes, really.  And I promise to take care of you and never leave you, if you want me around.”

            “Want you around??  Melchior!” she screeched, pushing him away from her and sitting up.  “Of course I ‘want you around’!”

            “Really?”

            “Yes, really!”  Gemma surprised herself by actually laughing.  Melchior noticed, raising his eyebrows as she recollected herself.  It felt wrong to laugh, but at the same time, it felt good.  It felt like it was just what she needed.

            She giggled lightly again.  “Are you going to be able to deal with it?  I think I might be a little crazy.  Well, I mean, I always was, but I’m going to be broken forever.  I can’t believe I’m laughing,” she squealed, doubling over in side-splitting laughter.  Melchior looked at her with a peculiar smile.  “I can’t believe I’m laughing, but I think running away made things even more confusing, and with _him_ gone, I feel like I’ve lost it.”

            “Lost what?”

            “My mind.”

            “No,” he disagreed.  “It’s the grief talking.  It’s going to get easier.”

            She put a hand on his shoulder.  “Fair warning, Melchior Gabor.  You say you still love me, but I’m all wrong now.  I ran away from you, and everyone, and I admit to it.  I’m always going to be a little crazy because of what happened.”

            “I don’t care.”

            “I might scream.  I’ll throw things.  I’ll go into stupors.  You’ll get sick of my issues.”

            “You think you have issues?” he laughed.  “I assure you, I have plenty more than you do and am more than ready to deal with yours.”

             “Consider this: soon, the news will be out, even if they can salvage my reputation.  I’ll be ruined.  Could you love a ruined girl?”

            “I do.”

            “Thanks,” she said sarcastically.  “Glad to know I have the vote of confidence when it comes to my future.”

            “All I know,” he replied, “is that I’ll take you, no matter what’s wrong with you and no matter what it costs me.  As long as you’ll take me.”

            “I will.  I already have.”

            “Good.  Because you could order me away if you wanted, and I would listen, but I honestly think I couldn’t live another day without you.”

            “Lucky me.”

            They sat together, not even touching, side by side.  Annie had drawn closed the curtains to the outside, and while neither of them made a move to reopen them, they both stared intently at the curtains as if they could see outside. 

            “Gemma…” Melchior began, but then he thought the better of it.

            She turned.  “What?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Tell me.”

            “No, it’s stupid.”

            “Nothing you say is stupid.  Well,” she amended, “some of the stuff you say is stupid.  But only a very little.”

            “It’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now,” he said quietly, not taking his eyes off the curtain.  Gemma threw herself over him.

            “Is it to ask me to marry you?  Yes!”

            Melchior blinked rapidly, jumping a little to have Gemma thrown across his lap.  “What?  No—well, yes—but that wasn’t—what I was asking.  I was asking if…well, this does seem ridiculous, but I was asking if you loved…if you love me, too.”

            She straightened up and looked at him, shocked.  “What kind of a question is that?”

            “You never said it.  Before you left.  You didn’t tell me, and I was worried that…see, I told you it was stupid!  You always make me sound like a fumbling schoolboy, searching for words.”

            “That’s because you are.  And in case it wasn’t obvious,” she said matter-of-factly, placing her hands around his face tenderly, “I am in love with you.  I’m glad we cleared the air.  Now let’s get married.”

            “You’ve had a rough day, sweetheart.”

            “But I want to.  Don’t you?”  
            “Of course.  I’d take you away tonight in a heartbeat.  But just this afternoon we found each other again, and I think…well, to be honest, I think you’re going to start crying again in a few hours over it.  And if we’re not careful, I will, too.”

            “Do NOT remind me,” she said, and Melchior immediately regretted it.  She started crying as if on command, and he comforted her as always while cursing himself for making her remember.

            “C-Can w-w-we just r-run away?” she sobbed into his shirt, now stained beyond repair with tears.  “W-We don’t h-have t-to get m-m-married, w-we can just go!”

            “No, no more running away.  Shhhh,” he whispered softly.  “It’ll all be okay.  We’re going to get through this, together.”

            “I m-miss him!” Gemma continued, twisting his shirt in her hands.  “I s-s-still can’t believe he’s gone!”

            “Neither can I.”

           

            Melchior and Gemma had never been in more of a jumble.

            When Moritz and Wendla had died, he’d been so racked with guilt and depression that it was almost as if his life was controlled by death.  It was so heavy, it had stuck with him for five years.  Here he was again, grieving in the worst way, but somehow he felt joy in finding Gemma and being able to keep her.  He felt peace and strength in that, and still the immense guilt and intense grief.

            And Gemma had thought when she’d run away, she’d never been more confused in her life.  What a joke it seemed now that she felt the same things Melchior was feeling, as the only two people who’d ever really known Fiff or cared for him or loved him.  But while Melchior had experienced this before (unbeknownst to her), it was all new to her.  Already decided that she did not have the kind of strength others had in their emotions, this blow was too crushing for her to deal with.

            And yet, despite feeling this, she also felt that the blow was not enough to destroy her.  She felt in control of herself and her mind despite her tears and emptiness.  It gave her hope that everything could be okay.

            It could take months for her to feel normal again.  It would take years to heal.  And it would never be right.

            But she couldn’t make an attempt without Melchior.

           

            “Gemma?” Annie asked from the doorway an hour later.  She wouldn’t have said anything; she’d been expecting Melchior to be awake, keeping his vigil over her.  Still, Annie had already said it, and Gemma had heard it.  Melchior lay sound asleep on the bed.

            “Annie,” she said pleasantly, standing up and getting off the bed.  Before meeting with her friend, she tucked a few of the blankets around Melchior.

            “You’re…well, you’re not crying,” Annie said with a weak smile.  “It’s nice to talk to you after you’ve been gone so long.”

            Gemma laughed, hugging Annie.  “I missed you.  I’m so sorry I did this.  I caused all this suffering.”

            “Don’t play the martyr, you always do.  None of this is your fault.”

            “You’re beginning to sound like Melchior.”  Gemma said, closing the door behind her and walking out into the dark hall. 

            “How is he?  How are you both?”

            “Awful.  He’s doing a lot better than me; he hasn’t cried once.  But I know he’s just putting up a front for me.”

            “Will you two elope?”

            “No.  He’s against it, and in some way I agree.  I can’t keep running away, can I?  I’ve been doing it all my life.  No, I think it’s high time I faced the music.  I’m not running anywhere.”

            “I’ve been fired,” Annie said abruptly.

            “ _What_?!”

            She sighed before trying to explain.  “Your parents…and I…thought it best.  I guess you can say there was a general consensus that after all I’d done to help you escape those past few months, I shouldn’t stay on.”

            Gemma hugged her tightly.  “You can’t leave me now, I’ve only just seen you again!”

            “Aw, you’ll see me around.  I just wanted to say goodbye.”

            “You have to visit, as soon as possible.  I’m so, so, SO, sorry, Annie.  I never meant for any of this to happen.  Oh, this is all wrong!” Gemma exclaimed, making fists.  “I need to fix this.”

            “Your best friend died about eighteen hours ago.  There’s nothing you’re supposed to be doing for anyone except for yourself.”

            Gemma ignored this, wiping the few errant tears away from the corners of her eyes as she went back into her room and collected a book.  Coming back out into the hall, she offered it to Annie.

            “Gemma, I don’t really know how to read,” Annie sighed, but Gemma thrust it into her hand. 

            “Check the pages.  It’s all the money I made writing for the Times that I didn’t bring with me when I ran.  A few hundred in there, I think.”  
            “I can’t take this.”

            “I won’t have any peace until you do,” Gemma explained.  “Take it, Annie.  Payment in kind for everything you’ve done for me, though I’ll always owe you.  At least I can do some good today.”

            Annie was about to protest, but the girls heard whimpering inside.  “He’s having a nightmare,” Gemma explained, and she gave Annie a peck on the cheek in farewell.  “I have to go help him.  Take the money, Annie, and make good use of it.  And please stop by as soon as possible!”

            She nodded, dumbfounded, and left the Keeper mansion, clutching the novel in her hands.  Annie prided herself above all on her clear head, which she’d had all her life: she knew her place, she knew how things and people worked, and she knew what she was expected to do in all situations.  She could take charge and make decisions, even though a job as a maid never required it.  But now, with such a blow, she didn’t know anything she could do.

            After all, being a maid had been her first and only job, and she didn’t have any of the proper schooling to do anything else.  And poor Gemma, poor, enigmatic, unexplainable Gemma, was left to flounder without her direction.  Annie didn’t know if Melchior was up to the task yet.


	34. Chapter 34

Waking up for Gemma was always easier.  There was always a good thirty seconds where she could feel herself coming back to consciousness, and she could slowly open her eyelids and look around her while only feeling a nag at the back of her mind that there was something important she’d forgotten.

            Feeling rosy sunshine on the back of her eyelids, Gemma relished the sensation for a full unforgivable minute.  She actually enjoyed having the April sun touch her from the window, which, she found when she opened one eye to peek, had been propped open.  The stuffy room had been filled with easier spring air, though tainted a little with outside city smells.  It was still better than the stale air of last night.

            _Last night_. 

            Gemma groaned and curled away from the sun, burying herself in the sheets.  Memories however blurry came rushing back full force.  They pounded at her endlessly for a few moments, making the wounds fresh again, but they weren’t anything she hadn’t already seen. 

            “Gemma?” his voice called from across the room, and she couldn’t help but hear Fiff’s voice echo it in her mind.  When she didn’t answer, Melchior bounded across the room from wherever he’d been and jumped onto the bed, making the four-poster creak.  “Good morning, sleeping beauty,” he said cheerfully over her, balancing on his arms.

            “It doesn’t feel much like it,” she grumbled as she dug further into her nest of blankets.

            “Of course it does, you were enjoying how nice it was outside when you woke up.  Come on out,” he teased, pulling her out of the covers. 

            Gemma glared up at him as he uncovered her, lying down on her pillow and crossing her arms as she asked, “How can you be so chipper this morning?”

            “Because,” he said, “I am, unlike the girl I love, a very good actor and an even better liar.  Besides, I have work to do today.”

            “Work?  What kind of work?”

            He waggled his eyebrows.  “Your parents have requested an audience with me in a few hours.  And it’s bound to be oodles of fun.”

            Gemma frowned in confusion as he bounded up and out again to fix the curtains. “An audience?”  
            “I’m sure it’s to intimidate me into leaving you alone from now on, and I’ll have to make a case for sticking around.  The fighting for you never seems to stop, does it?  I’d have made a hell of a lawyer.”

            “A case for you sticking around?  That’s ridiculous!” she said, jumping out of bed and immediately feeling unsteady.  Melchior didn’t catch her in time, and she hit the floor in a little awkward crumple. 

            “Are you all right?” he asked, all concern.  “I’m not sure you’re ready to get up.”

            “I’m just fine,” she argued, standing up again, “and I’m angry now.  My parents have no right to chase you away after all you’ve done.”

            “They won’t be successful.  Give me a chance to try and get them on my side by myself before you get involved, darling.  They love you very much, but I think they’re more than a little angry with you.”

            “And we’ll get there.  One day.”  She paced around the room in her nightgown.  “I still can’t believe it happened.  I feel so…I can’t describe it.”

            “Do you want to try?”

            “Angry.  Scared.  Confused.  Depressed.  Guilty.”

            “You have a remarkable hold on your emotions right now.”

            “Well,” she said crisply, “it takes a lot of energy to be those things, let alone show them.  And right now, my parents are trying to drive away the only person who can help me through these feelings.”

            She looked at Melchior, who was placidly sitting in the window seat, and ran to him without an explanation.  Throwing her arms around him, she kissed him for the first time that day.  “The one good thing,” she said, “is that I have you back now.”

            Melchior smiled a little in spite of himself.  Kisses were incredible pain medication.  “I’ll never go away again.  But I did go away this morning.”

            “You what?”

            “I went back to my old apartment.  It was amazingly still mine; I think Mr. Howard’s been pulling some strings.  Everything was where it was, even though I stopped paying rent and technically moved out.”

            “One day,” Gemma said, “I’ll have to meet this Howard in person and thank him for all he’s done.”

            “I’ll introduce you myself.  He’d love this whole story.  Well, most of it.”

            “Anyway, your apartment?”

            “Yes,” he got back on track.  “Everything was still there, and I washed up and changed before coming back.”

            “How bad was it?”

            “Awful,” he admitted.  “Indescribably awful.  He was…he was everywhere.  I remembered him everywhere.  And I couldn’t get away from it, not like I could last time.”

            “Last time?”  
            “Melchior Past Territory.”

            “Ugh,” she groaned.  “One day, ONE DAY, you will have to explain it to me.  Everything about you.  If you think about it, I’m in love with a man I barely know.  All I know about you is your life for the past few months, and there are even some holes there!”

            “You’re supposed to be in love with me, not my history.  And I don’t know much about you.  But I’m going to have the rest of my life to learn.”

            They were silent for a few moments.

            “I miss him,” she whispered.  “It goes without saying, but I do.  It’s so…painful.”

            “Yes, it is.”

           

            There was no doubt in her mind that he would fight to stay with her, and that he was her man through and through, until the end of his days.  Still, it was incredible to think that there was someone in the world who cared about her enough to fight for her.

            Gemma sat at the top of the steps, clutching the mahogany banister to help her crane her neck over the side.  It was hard to hear what everyone was saying.

            “Well,” he began, “I’m sure you just want me to cut to the chase.  No more games, no more lies.”

            “That,” her mother seethed, “is exactly what we want.”

            Gemma was frightened, as usual, of her mother’s coldness and cutting voice.  It was even more intimidating now that she was in control of herself.  Soon she’d have to answer for her actions in front of the scariest woman in the world.  But the terrible thing was no matter how scary Wilhelmina was, at last Gemma could see why.

            It was only ever because she cared.

            “The main story is this,” Melchior explained.  “Gemma returned from Cliffwood two years ago and, though I’m not sure how or when, began to run out in disguise.  At first, I think, it was just to explore and get away, but it evolved over time into an assignment for her.  I’m not sure if you knew this, but Gemma is an incredible and very talented writer.”

            “We’ve always known she was good at writing,” her father added morosely.  “She wrote…the most adorable stories when she was younger.  Precious.  And she was always reading.”

            “Did you know, then, that she became an anonymous, renowned contributor to the New York Times?”

            Both parents were silent.  Gemma winced and a few tears squeezed out of her eyes.

            “No, we did not know that,” her father finally said.

            “She was.  She is.  And, over time, she met F-F—”

            Gemma continued to cry as he struggled to get the name out.  Would the crying never stop??

            “She met Fiff.  He was an orphan, living on the streets, but he was…so amazing.  I’m not sure you would understand.”

            “You don’t think we know how wonderful a child can be?” Wilhelmina asked.  “We’re not strangers to the concept, Mr. Gabor.  We’ve raised four of our own, and all are amazing.”

            “Of course.  I didn’t mean…well, I meant no disrespect.  Gemma and…Fiff went out together to investigate and write.”

            “But why?” her father asked.  “I still don’t understand why she was so desperate to get away.  We’re not bad people, she does not have a bad life.  She has been offered everything.”

            “To be honest, Mr. Keeper, I just don’t think she’s cut out for this lifestyle.”

            “This lifestyle?”

            “The, erm, cotillions and tea parties and manners.  It drains her considerably.”

            Gemma heard her father sit back in his chair, making the leather squeak.  She’d never felt so ashamed, even with Melchior’s gentle words trying to sugarcoat it as best he could.

            “And how did you come into the picture, Mr. Gabor?” he finally asked.

            Melchior chuckled.  “I was sort of roped into the whole thing.  I befriended Fiff—well, it was more like he befriended _me_.  I think he knew how much I needed companionship.  He just knew.  All of us.  We started investigating together.  Which brings me to perhaps the crux of the matter.”  He paused.  “I’m in love with your daughter.”

           

            There was a lot more arguing after that—well, it wasn’t really arguing.  Her father seemed too depressed with the entire affair to argue much, and he accepted that the couple cared about each other.  He made it very clear, however, that he didn’t think it would work out on any level.  Her mother was a different story: while she didn’t condemn the idea after all of Melchior’s help, she was determined to salvage Gemma’s life.  After all, having a daughter live with a practically penniless writer at 17 was less than ideal.

            Melchior was patient and took their criticism.  All the while, Gemma kept clutching the banister for dear life, wishing she could be down there with him.  Holding his hand.  Getting stronger.

            “Do you think,” Wilhelmina asked weakly, “that we could discuss things a little bit more?  Just between my husband and I?”

            “Of course,” Melchior said graciously.  “I understand this is a lot to take in.  I’ll take my leave, then.”

            Gemma heard him shuffle out of the room, but before leaving, he added, “You should know, however, that I won’t be leaving forever.  She’s going to need me.”

            “Goodbye, Mr. Gabor.”

            As soon as he left the room, Gemma tumbled down the stairs.  “Well?  Where are you going?  You’re not really leaving, are you??”

            Melchior caught her before she tripped down the last few steps.  “Eavesdropping, were we?”

            “Come on, you knew I was!  What’s going on?”

            Melchior sighed and sat her down on the steps.  “Eventually, you’re going to have to change out of that nightgown, don’t you think?”  
            “You’re objecting to my nightgown, now?”  

            “You could wear a potato sack and I’d still be crazy for you.”

            “You’re changing the subject.”  She was antsy with anxiety.  “Come on, you’re not leaving me?  Not now?  It’s only been a day!”

            “I’m just going home.  I’ll probably be back this evening, or tomorrow morning.  I’ve got to respect your parents’ wishes, haven’t I?”

            She didn’t respond, she just shot up and into his arms.  “You must come back.  It’s not forever.”

            He kissed her temple.  “I promise.  You must be brave, though, when I’m not here.”

            “I’m not a baby!”

            “I never said you were.”

            Gemma playfully smacked his chest.  It was good to have this: her conversations with Melchior hadn’t changed.  They wouldn’t change.  He would always be Melchior, and she would always be Gemma, and they’d always have this.

            She folded her arms gently around him and pressed a kiss to his lips.  “Hurry back.”


	35. Chapter 35

It was hard.

           

            They both had their share of not being able to deal with it.  Gemma would wake up depressed and barely go through the motions of her day, and Melchior would try to get her to stop.  They’d fight.  They’d fight ferociously.  Gemma would cry.  Melchior would cry. 

            They had their share of hard times.  And it was an uphill battle, but they fought it together every step of the way.

           

            “May I come in?” Melchior asked anxiously from outside her bedroom door.  “Are you decent?”

            “Very nearly,” she answered, “but get in here and help me with this dress?”

            He sighed and opened the heavy oak door, dragging various pieces of his suit inside.  “Your father seemed to know what he was doing when he got this suit for me, but I don’t.”

            “Be thankful he took a liking to you.  Mother is taking her sweet time getting used to you,” she laughed softly from her vanity.  The bow at the back of her white ball gown hung loosely from the dress and off the chair.  Gemma seemed to be focused entirely on pinning up her hair in the adult style.  “I never thought this day would come.  I never expected it to be so close.”

            “Turning eighteen, you mean?”

            “Becoming a legal adult seems nice and far away when you’re seventeen.  And then you realize it’s only a few months off before you are one.”

            Melchior grinned, swooping behind her to tie the bow on the back.  “You look beautiful.  Like a lady.”

            “Ugh,” she groaned, placing a final pin in her hair before it was pulled back perfectly and touching the pearls set in it tentatively.  “I still prefer the trousers.  Come on, you’re entirely unsuitable.”

            Melchior looked down at his pants and shirt, which was all he’d managed to put on of the expensive suit.  “Yes, please.  I’m sure you’re excited to get down to your coming-out party.”

            “I detect the sarcasm, Gabor, and I resent it,” she said, opening up a window.  More and more lights were emerging as the June night progressed, illuminating the windows of the houses around them.  “Look!” she squealed.  “You can even see stars tonight!”

            “Through the smog?” he asked incredulously, rushing to the window.  “Incredible.  Your night is blessed.”

            Gemma ignored this and went to work, slapping parts of the suit onto Melchior’s body. 

            “Thank you,” he said as she silently pulled his arms through the sleeves.  “You’re doing well, today.”

            She froze, but barely for a moment, letting the pain that still stung after months bite at her heartstrings before pushing past it.  Smoothing the lapels of his suit from behind, she ‘hmph’-ed and backed away to look at Melchior in his finished suit.  “You are, too.  I had trouble this morning, but I figured he’d have…wanted me to have fun.  Eighteen’s a big age, I hear.”

            Melchior nodded.  “Indeed.  Wait until you get to nineteen.”

            Gemma nodded with serious, wide grey eyes.  Grinning shyly, Melchior kissed her nose and asked, “Smile for me, birthday girl?  You look terrified, and I don’t know if it’s because of this party or because of him.”

            They didn’t need to clarify who ‘he’ was.  They never had to.

            She wanted to argue that it was both—and everything—but Melchior’s hazel eyes were powerful persuasion to her.  She broke out into a gleaming smile.  “Here it is, you asked for it.  How painful does it look?”

            He kissed her ear.  “Not at all.  It’s gorgeous.”

            “And you, sir, are full of—what is it the kids are calling it these days?  Corniness?”

            Melchior backed away with a wink and playfully swatted Gemma’s behind.  “Corny, am I?  I thought I was being distracting—from the throng downstairs awaiting their new legal adult peer.”

            “You’re right,” Gemma said in mock seriousness.  “Distract me!”  She pulled him by the collar and smashed her lips against his, giggling lightly before they went on kissing.

            Melchior was always a gentleman with Gemma, keeping in mind at all times his past mistakes (and the close proximity her parents always kept to the young couple, in a clandestine attempt to preserve her virtue).  Still, the couple got their fair amount of kissing into their days.

            And they were both addicted to it.

            “I think—I’m getting—carried away—” Melchior groaned against Gemma’s lips, pressing her aggressively against a vanity and scattering hairbrushes and powder puffs on the floor.

            She squealed when he pushed her to sit on top of the vanity and smacked him away, breathless and laughing.  “You are.  But consider me distracted!”  She immediately set to straightening them both up while they both caught their breath.  “We’re shameless, you know that?”

            “Completely.”

 

            “An utter success!” Angela pronounced, surveying the ballroom’s dancing couples and crowds of delighted guests.  “The Keepers do know how to throw a good coming-out party—and darling Gemma looks like a fine lady.”

            Her husband nodded, half-listening while sipping at a glass of champagne.  Parties had never been particularly enjoyable to him, but as a member of the upper class, they were sometimes a necessary evil.

            “Did you know, dear,” she continued, a grey curl bobbing from her forehead while her head wobbled with gossip, “that the youngest Miss Keeper spent the early spring in Switzerland?  Wouldn’t Switzerland be a fine vacation?  Think how Reg would love it there!”

            “Surely you heard, Mrs. Howard?” one of her crony friends interjected.  “I heard she wasn’t in Switzerland at all—and that she ran away from home to be a can-can dancer in Berlin!”

            “Oh, Mrs. Carthy, the very thought!” another lady put in.  “But I did hear an interesting story…that she ran away from home and was missing for months!”

            Mrs. Angela Howard shook her head violently.  “No Keeper girl in her right mind—no Keeper at all—would ever do something so disgraceful as to run away from home.  The audacity to say such a thing!  You all should be ashamed!  I hear you can get quite a refined education in Switzerland.”

            Gemma Keeper made her way through the crowds of people, smiling brightly and twinkling like a star with the attention of each and every guest.  Her escort on her big night was Melchior Gabor, who was always silently smiling at her elbow or leading her by the wrist to a table or group.  The entire party had to agree what a jewel Gemma was—they denied ever calling her plain or sullen at previous social gatherings and praised her porcelain features.  Silver star-shaped pieces glistened in her twisted hair, her cheeks firm and wide with smiling and laughing, and her eyes sparkled for each and every party guest at the slightest compliment.

            They sparkled especially at the sight of her parents, who beamed proudly upon their daughter all night, and her siblings.  Alice was crying happily from the edge of the ballroom, Patrick winked at gave thumbs-up, and Marny and Jacky danced together while laughing through a polka. 

            And they sparkled at her escort, that handsome Mr. Gabor.  The gossiping guests were informed that she’d met him while taking the air in Switzerland, which explained the foreign sounding name and slight tinge of a European accent.  He chuckled with the guests and offered witty conversation at every turn, making the people cackle and jokingly rib Gemma’s father, asking him where he’d found such a delightful German gentleman.  They’d also ask—when Miss Keeper and Mr. Gabor had left a conversation—if the two were destined for a match?  After all, it was being whispered around for quite some time that Miss Keeper and Mr. Harry Madison were going to be engaged.  In fact, an announcement had been made in the papers.

            Mr. Keeper would smile and inform the questioning public of the party that Mr. Madison was called away on urgent business to London and the engagement plans had fizzled out amicably after his hasty departure.  He was careful not to comment on the delightful Herr Gabor’s connection to his daughter. 

            “Miss Keeper!” Angela Howard called to the white dress that stood out from the crowds.  Her husband rolled his eyes good-naturedly at the titterings of the group of married ladies his wife was talking with and regarded Gemma from across the room.  Gemma turned her head before curtsying a goodbye to the people she was talking to, gliding along to the circle of chattering women. 

            “How beautiful you are!  Your party is such a success, so much like dear Mrs. Madison’s, your sister’s, if I remember,” Mrs. Howard gushed, grabbing the hand of the young woman.

            “Thank you very much for being here tonight, Mrs. Howard,” Gemma said, bowing her head, and she greeted the rest of the women she knew.  “Sir, I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting,” she said to the only man in the group, standing resignedly behind Mrs. Howard.

            “We haven’t, my dear,” he said, stepping forward and kissing her hand, “but I’ve heard a lot about you from one of my good friends.  I’m Norman Howard, editor in chief and CEO of the New York Times.”

            Gemma’s eyebrows shot up.  “Mr. Howard?  It’s…an honor, sir.  I’m a big fan of your work.”

            “So I hear.  Darling,” Howard said to his wife, who was back to chattering with her friends, “would you mind if I took Miss Gemma for a turn on the dance floor?  I want to make sure the lady dances on her big night.”

            Angela all but waved him away and Howard led Gemma by the elbow to the outskirts of the dancing.

            “You want to dance, Mr. Howard?” Gemma asked, eyes wide in confusion.

            “Not at all,” he said in a huff.  “I never could dance, not even as a boy.  Too stompy.  But I did want to steal you away from the gossip for a proper introduction with one of my star journalists.”

            Gemma squeaked. 

            “You can drop the tiring, smiley façade,” he sighed with a weary smile.  “I’m sure it’s exhausting to be so cordial to all these annoying, stuffy people.”

            At that, her shoulders seemed to droop a little.  “A little exhausting,” she said, “but it’s not such an ordeal.  They—well, most of them—want me to see me happy tonight, and they don’t mean any harm.  This isn’t a façade.  I’m guessing Melchior told you everything.”

            “Down to the last detail.  And I’m fascinated.  I owe you a big thank you.”

            She practically guffawed, putting a hand on Howard’s much taller and wider shoulder, and said, “Mr. Howard—Norman—I’m the one who needs to thank you for everything.  For publishing my work under the strangest of circumstances, agreeing never to meet me face to face, for being so kind to Fiff and for being such a mentor to Melchior—for everything you’ve done for Melchior!  I know you’ve pulled a lot of strings for him, probably strings he doesn’t even realize existed.”

            “I wish I could say it was nothing, but I’m a terrible liar,” he laughed.

            “Me too.”

            They both giggled at that, and Howard found himself very taken with the girl: however ladylike and demure she appeared to be, there was an obvious edge and wit to her.  “You know, I like you, kid.  I think you might have spunk.  I can’t really tell, what with you acting like Queen Victoria, but a girl who’s done all that you’ve done has some fire in her.  And a lot of heart, to write those stories.  And to pull Melchior out of his funk.  I can see why he’d fall in love with you.”

            Gemma wanted to blush furiously, but it was the truth.  “He didn’t leave a thing out, did he?”

            “Well, if there’s anything I’ve missed, I’d be happy to have you fill in the holes: when you and Melchior visit my office with an article again, I’ll make some space to hear your side of the story.”  He pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to her.  “Even though you probably already know where my office is—and Melchior does—and I know where he lives—and you know where he lives—well, the business card just makes it official.”

            “You want us to write?” she asked, snatching the card.  “I haven’t written in ages!  Not since…well, everything!”

            Howard shook her hand and bowed slightly, saying, “You’ll have to start again soon.  And bring me an invitation to the wedding, of course.  I have a wife to watch, Miss Keeper, but we’ll see each other again.”

            “Until then, Mr. Howard!” she said, waving goodbye across the ballroom and squealing with surprise and delight.  She’d met her idol of sorts and boss, and it looked like her writing future could start again.

            With refreshed resolve and confidence, she marched right up to Melchior (listening in on the orchestra) and pinched the back of his hand.  “You complete idiot.  You told Norman Howard my entire story?”

            Without missing a beat, Melchior swung around and swept Gemma into a scandalous dip.  “No.  I told him OUR story.  Dance with me?”

            “Always,” she returned, swaying up into a waltz.  “Thank your lucky stars Marny gave me dancing lessons for this, so we’re not back to shuffling.”

            “Thank YOUR lucky stars Jacky gave me dancing lessons for this.  I’ve never been taught by a 12-year-old before,” he whispered into her ear, focusing on the beat and swinging around the enormous room. 

            They were quiet after that, thoroughly talked out and ready for an excuse to be with each other in silence.  The room was loud enough with the music and clatter of plates and glasses, layered with the buzz of talk, but they didn’t hear anything.

           

            Gemma watched the gilded ceiling above her, with cherubs winging over the dancing couples’ head and around the crystal-studded chandeliers.  She kept her focus on the feeling of Melchior’s arm on her back, guiding her along with his hand on the small of her back while using his other hand to hold her own.  They were moving through water, or maybe clouds, as the focus of the party went from being entirely on them to on more interesting and scandalous news of the evening.

            Melchior darted his head down to hide the quick kiss he placed on her forehead.  “I love you.”

            “I love you, too,” she whispered.  “Lots of questions about a proposal tonight.”

            “Hint, hint,” he joked.  “People are quite taken with the suave, German Melchior, aren’t they?”

            “I know I am,” she grinned, getting a little closer than what was required for a waltz.  “Melchior, I want tonight to be important.  To be special.”

            The young man swallowed several times, finding a lump in his throat, and blinked rapidly at her.  “Um…Gem, I’m not sure that…erm, special…is a g-good idea.”

            “You’re spluttering!” she laughed.  “What, do you have other plans?  I have a request to make of you tonight.”

            Melchior averted his eyes, trying to hide his voice getting higher in embarrassment and his burning cheeks.  “Gemma, you know I want you.  Desperately.  I always have.  But I’ve made the decision not to…have relations…with you…for a long time.”

            Gemma’s eyebrows almost hit the ceiling.  “Relations?  Melchior, I was talking about going to visit your apartment!”

            Melchior stopped dancing, staring ahead in shock.  Gemma sighed and hauled him off the dance floor.  “You know?  I think I’d prefer the relations thing to that,” he choked when he sat down, getting sweaty.  “Gemma, you haven’t been over to my apartment since before you ran away.”

            “I used to go over all the time.  Practically daily.”

            “But that was a different time,” he said, exasperated, “and I don’t think I can let you.”

            Gemma looked at him in a huff.  “Why?  How is it different?  Are you housing some exotic dancer there now that you’re hiding from me?”

            He rolled his eyes and met hers, saying, “Of course not.  You’re the only one I want, and you know it.  I just don’t want you there.  At least, not today.”

            “What are you so afraid of?”

            “Gemma,” he said weakly, taking her hand, “this is your night to be happy.  And that place is NOT happy.”

            She stood, waiting for an explanation.

            He sighed.  “Everything there…nothing’s changed.  Nothing since he and I left to find you.  Like I said, Howard had had it kept for me, so when I went back, everything was where it used to be.  Your article up on the wall.  My books on the floor.  His clothes, his papers…” He looked down to keep his voice from breaking, staring holes into the floor.  “The place he used to fall asleep in the afternoon.  The desk where we’d both work.  The doorknob he touched.  It’s all him, Gemma, and every time I go to sleep, I add his memory to the nightmares I already have, and I wake up and it’s all still there.  I can’t…let you feel that.  I won’t let you.”

            Gemma wanted to scold him and kiss him and cry with him, because she could imagine it all, but she just said softly, “That’s exactly why I want to go.  Need to.  This night isn’t mine, it’s all of ours.  You think I don’t see him here, hiding around ladies’ skirts and raiding the snack table?  Smiling and laughing and tumbling over himself?  I see him everywhere tonight, because we both know he should be here.  But for months now his memory’s been around, hurting.  I need to let go of him before I go crazy again.  Isn’t that fair?  Isn’t it what he would have wanted?”

            Melchior just shrugged, obviously very upset.  Gemma got closer to him, putting a finger under his chin and forcing him to meet her gaze.  “Isn’t that what Fiff would have wanted?  Fiff.  Our beloved friend.  I want to be able to look back and smile, Melchior, and tonight is the night to do it.”

            He didn’t answer, keeping his gaze cool and noncommittal.  Gemma felt his jaw clench under her finger, and she whispered, almost an apology: “I want to kiss you right now.  I can’t, with everyone here, but I want to.”

            He didn’t answer.

            “You’re angry with me,” she pleaded.  “Don’t be angry with me.”

            The German boy continued to stare, but he stayed silent.  Gemma pulled his hand away from his chin and looked down in embarrassment.  “It is my birthday, Melchi.”

            He made a small sound in the back of his throat, halfway between a cry and a growl.  “You and your feminine charms.  Let’s go.”

            Gemma didn’t even have time to look surprised, Melchior pulled her with him across the dancers and through the ballroom.  “You’re agreeing to it?”

            “Let’s not talk about it, before I change my mind, please,” he said through a strained smile, ushering her through the giant oak doors. 

            John Keeper, Sr. saw the young couple rushing out and caught the boy’s eye as he opened the door for his daughter, whose surprised smile reached her eyes as she ran to the hall.  He raised an eyebrow at the boy, who simply stared back for a few seconds.  Mr. Keeper could tell: the boy was asking for permission.

            _He could be taking her out to elope._

_He could be kidnapping her._

_He could be doing any number of things to my daughter right now._

Mr. Keeper looked to heaven above and then to Melchior, giving a short nod before getting more champagne.  The young couple was home free.


	36. Chapter 36

Gemma hadn’t remembered the walk being this long.  When she’d been out reporting or visiting Melchior and Fiff, each walk was precious and dangerous, and she’d run all the way to her destination.  Now, in a puffy white evening dress, holding hands with her fuming Melchior down the damp night streets, each step was an eternity she spent alone with her brewing thoughts.

            She wasn’t scared.  If she could face it, Fiff’s memory in all its force at Melchior’s home, she knew it might seem overwhelming at first.  But if she could hide the initial overwhelming feeling, at least enough to convince Melchior that she was all right, then she could see Fiff’s life and their life together before her and have it hurt her just once more before it finally healed. 

            These past few months had been so painful, with Melchior around and alone as well.  She didn’t want it to hurt them anymore, she wanted to close the door on it forever.  She wanted to be able to recall a time with Fiff and Melchior and not squeeze the tears away but smile.

            That moment was close, Gemma could feel it.  But it wouldn’t happen unless they finished their trip.

            “I’m not angry with you, you know,” he said after a while.  He’d kept his hand in hers while they walked, holding it tightly, and Gemma had gotten around to thinking he was pulling her to his apartment.  “I’m not really angry at all.  Your logic makes sense.  I understand why you want this, and what you think it will do for us.  But I still don’t want to.”

            “Melchior, I think you’re just afraid,” she said softly.

            “Of what?”

            She paused.  “Our reaction.”

            He broke away from Gemma.  “This is a terrible idea.  Let’s go back, Gemma, please.”

            “You are afraid!” she said, but without a victorious tone—just a sad one.  “Melchior, there’s nothing there that can hurt us!  I promise not to fall apart.  What are you really afraid of?”

            “I don’t know,” he said, raking a hand through his curls.  “I just don’t know.  I don’t think I can do this.  I need to think about this.  I don’t want you to go in there and face all that by yourself, but I don’t want to be there when you do see it, because if I see you cry one more time because of him, I will break for good.  Can’t you see how much this hurts both of us?  Why do you want to hurt more?”

            “Because,” she explained firmly, “I know that it’s going to hurt the worst before it gets better.  And I know it’s going to better.  It’s not just something that’s hindering me anymore, it’s both of us.  Together.  We can’t be together without thinking of him or feeling guilty that we’re here and he’s not.  If you think about it, he’s keeping you away from me, and I can’t live with that much longer.  I didn’t sign on to lose both of you, much less one of you.”

            Melchior stood aghast.  It was all too much.  “You won’t…lose me…it doesn’t work that way…”

            “Think about it and you’ll see it does,” she said, stopping in her tracks.  “Your flat is five blocks away.  I know the way from here.  I will never force you to do anything you don’t want to do, Melchior Gabor, because even as hard as this is, I am and always will be in love with you.  Which is why I’m doing this—I’m making sure that we can look back on our time with Fiff and feel thankful for him, because without him there would be no ‘us’.”

 

            Gemma ran from Melchior after finishing the valiant speech she’d planned on the walk over—she’d had a feeling that Melchior would balk near the end and try to turn back.  This needed to happen.  It would happen.

            She lifted her skirts and ran, moving through the humid June air that clung to everything.  Feeling sluggish, she was sure that Melchior had caught up to her, but she didn’t check to see if he’d ran after her.  Sliding past the few people that lined the night streets, she closed the gap between her and the apartment and threw herself through the chipped door to the building.  Up she squeezed through the rickety metal stairs and finally to the familiar door.

            Gemma didn’t think at all, she just used her shoulder to barrel through the tired old door and burst into the apartment.

           

            A sound of anguish bubbled from her throat, but she didn’t hear it.  The night seemed to go still for a moment as she stood and looked, but then the noises of outside seemed more pronounced.  She felt suddenly very small in the ridiculously poofy white dress and little flat, with the honks and buzzes of the city humming around her.  Without feeling it, she closed the door and walked around in a daze.

            She couldn’t feel anything, so numb was she.  She knew the sight of everything, everything that Melchior had told her was here, should make her feel misery of the acutest kind, but she only felt the buzz of the city and of her own brain.

            _Let’s be practical_ , her mind told her, and she repeated, “Practical.”  She worked at the stays and shimmied out of the dress, which she folded over the back of that same couch. 

            Shoes?  Off.

            Stockings?  Off.

            Underwear?  Gemma looked down at the endless white of her corset, knickers, and chemise, and thought the better of it, putting on a shirt of Melchior’s instead and trousers for good measure. 

            Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her first article still on the wall and ran over to see it, which brought her attention to Melchior’s dictionary pile nearby.  The desk near that pile.  The stool.  The couch. The stove.  The bed.  Oh. Oh.  _Oh_.

            Gemma collapsed on the floor and saw it all in front of her: every moment and place Fiff had been in this room, playing in phantom scenes in her mind’s eye. 

            For one moment and one moment alone, it was just too much. 

            And after that indescribably moment, Gemma started breathing hard, like she’d come up for air after a long dive, and all the buzz drained from the room.

            The room was empty except for her.  When she stared at a book, she saw no phantom and felt no tears—Fiff had touched that book.  So he had.  He’d touched a lot of things.  He’d done a lot of things.

            “That wasn’t so hard,” Gemma whispered to herself.  “Is that it?”

            Was it?

            She still felt sad.  She’d expected to be happy immediately.

            “Gemma?  GEMMA?”

            She looked over to the window, open to the night air.  Melchior’s voice.  He must be outside.

            Outside, shouting up to the window.  Logical.  Okay.

            “Come on, Romeo,” she said, getting up and leaning over the window ledge.  “I borrowed your clothes, I hope you don’t mind.”

            She sat on the couch waiting for him, looking straight ahead when he entered, sucked in a breath, sighed, and put his coat on the couch over her dress.

            He took off the tuxedo jacket and the tie and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt.  He kicked off his shoes.  And then he sat down next to Gemma.  “So?”

            “That’s his stool,” she said simply.  “But when I see it, I don’t cry.  I just feel…sort of sad.  But I also feel like it’s just a stool and it doesn’t mean a thing.  I feel dull.”

            “Dull?”

            “How do you feel?”

            Melchior clicked his tongue.  “When you ran?  Angry.  When I was alone.  Terrified.  When I ran to get here?  Worried.  When I saw you in the window?  Confused.  When I got inside, half-dead until I saw you sitting here like it was absolutely nothing.”

            “Oh.”

            “And now?  Confused and unwilling to talk about feelings, because when I saw you sitting here I remembered where I was and who you were, and I remembered that you’re not just Gemma, you’re my Gemma, and you’re here.  And that I’m in love with you, too.”

            He slid his arm around her and squeezed her to his chest, and he pulled the jeweled pieces from her hair and the pins out of her bun until all the wavy brown hair was out and splayed over her shoulders and his fingers.

            Gemma stayed frozen, enduring his arm around her and his gentle fingers undoing her hair, and Melchior could have sworn she was either in shock or thoroughly repulsed by the man she’d declared her love to for the millionth time not five minutes ago.

            But out of nowhere she cried out and threw her arms around his middle, burying her face in his chest.  “I’m back, I’m back!  Sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m back now.  I was…thinking.  Well, if you could call it thinking.”

            Melchior patted her back awkwardly until she uncurled herself and fixed their bodies so they were properly cuddling.  “Are you crying?”

            “Not at all.  Is that bad?” she asked. 

            “I don’t think so.  No.”

            “Good.  I don’t know, I just feel like I get it.  Or I get something.  I’m not sad anymore.  Well, I am.  But I’m not.  Not in that way, I guess.  I think I had an epiphany.  I can’t really describe it.”

            “You’re rambling,” Melchior laughed nervously, but he felt the edge leaving.  Each moment got less tense and closer to normal.  “We should get back to the party.  I don’t want people to talk, and it’s awkward here.”

            Gemma frowned.  “Can I come here soon?”

            “Very soon.  Next time won’t be as…strange.  We’ve gotten over the ‘strange hurdle’ now.  We only have a few more to go now.”       

            “It’ll be pretty boring when we run out of boundaries to cross,” she yawned, standing up.  “Don’t you think?  Come on, back to the celebrating masses.”


	37. Chapter 37

“Gabor!” Howard called jovially from his leather throne.  “Get the hell into my office!” 

            Melchior laughed his way past the flustered secretary, still trying to keep the German boy out after all these years when he didn’t have a scheduled meeting.  “Busy today, are we, Howard?” he remarked at the piles of manuscripts and articles on the editor’s desk.

            “Not anymore.  When I heard you were bringing your lovely guest, I cleared a few hours away.  Sheldon will be taking care of leafing through these, since he wants to try his hand at editing,” Howard said with a devilish grin to his secretary, who seemed terrified at the prospect of the giant stacks of paper to sort through.

            “Miss Keeper!” Howard continued with a winning smile, nodding his head to the lady entering his office.  “Wonderful to see you again.  I’d stand up in your presence, but I’m afraid I’m a man with big bones that don’t quite move the way they used to.”

            “That’s quite all right,” Gemma laughed.  “I’m just happy to finally be here.  You run a tight ship here, Mr. Howard.”

            “I try.  Gabor,” he barked to the boy, “get out of the special chair.  There’s a lady here, and that spot has her name written all over it.”

            Gemma stared Melchior down until he reluctantly got out of the large leather chair and seated herself with a contented ‘hmm’.  “Melchior said you had a proposition for us, Mr. Howard.”

            “I said he might,” Melchior revised, shrugging at Howard.

            “As a matter of fact, I do,” Howard said, putting out his cigar in Gemma’s presence.  “But this is a friendly visit for the time being.  I’d love to hear Miss Keeper’s side of the story, and then we can talk, but how are you both?”

            Gemma shrugged and looked at Melchior.  “Trying to beat the heat, I suppose.  Life is kind of boring after you come out to society: you wallow your days away if you’re not careful.  Still, Melchior and I walk around the city, we write, we read.”

            “I have news for you,” Howard laughed.  “My eldest daughter was endlessly busy with suitors after coming out.  You’re just an anomaly, and that ridiculous German sitting next to you is to blame.”

            Melchior covered his face in his hands, hiding laughter.  “I’m afraid it is my fault.  No boys are pursuing a suit with you because they know I have first dibs.  Everyone knows it by now.”

            Howard guffawed.  “The dashing European met while taking the air in Switzerland—how very romantic and scandalous.  Don’t laugh, Gabor,” he scolded when Melchior laughed with him, “because you might think you get the prize here, but you don’t know what you’ve brought on yourself.”

            Gemma turned to him expectantly, wanting to see his expression when Howard explained.  “Melchior,” he said, “you think right now that you’re lucky because your little girlfriend is all yours, but you’ve just put yourself in a pickle here.  With no competition, everyone expects an engagement.  Right about now.”

            Melchior’s face went white while Gemma laughed along with Howard, the entire predicament to them an enormous joke.  She’d never thought of it that way, but she supposed it was true.  Melchior tried to laugh nervously along with them, but he look horrified.

            “Oh, come on, Melchi,” she said.  “How bad will marrying me be?  You told me that that’s what you set out to do when you and Fiff went looking for me!”

            “I’m sure you know by now that Melchior’s not into organized religion,” Howard said from his desk.  “In fact, he’s not into religion, period.”

            “Untrue—I did have to reform my way of thinking after the deaths of a few of my friends!  I mean, I can’t just have them gone—not existing anymore.  There had to be something else for them after life, because I couldn’t resign myself to the fact that they’d been here for nothing and there was nothing left of them.”

            “Poetic,” Howard said.  “When did you come to this conclusion?  After the passing of Fiff, our dear friend?”

            Melchior shook his head, frowning slightly with Gemma.  Howard sighed.  “Maybe it was after your pal Moritz’s parting, then—or Wendla’s?”

 

            The moment he said it, Howard knew he shouldn’t have mentioned a word…or a name.

 

            Melchior’s face went even whiter, and his eyes practically popped out of his head in disbelief.  He gripped the edges of his chair for composure and immediately looked right to Gemma, mouth wide open and eyes pleading for understanding.

            Gemma looked at him simultaneously, looking very confused but realizing the gravity of the situation.  The humorous mood drained from the room while Howard wanted to take back his words and Melchior apologized through his eyes to the girl he loved, who didn’t know what had really happened.

            She simply asked, “Melchior?  Who is Wendla?”

            All he could do was close his mouth and swallow.  She leaned into him, almost comforting as the silence drowned the room, and asked further, “Melchior, who is Moritz?”

            Howard cleared his throat and stood up to get a drink from behind him.

            “Melchior,” she said, eyebrows furrowing in confusing, “who is Moritz, and who is—oh, no.  Oh.  _Oh_.”

            Howard tried to interject while pouring himself a brandy.  “Miss Keeper, I spoke out of turn.  I didn’t realize how much of his story Melchior had—or hadn’t—related to you.”

            She turned wildly to him.  “So he really has told you everything?  His entire life story?  I thought he’d told you what happened from meeting me on…not absolutely everything!”

            Howard bowed his head in apology.  “I am so sorry, Miss Keeper.”

            “So you know all about his past?  Didn’t he tell you that he’s never told me any of it?  I don’t know a thing about his life before he came to America!  I don’t know who damned Moritz is—was—pardon my French—or this Wendla!”  She looked back to Melchior, still frozen with fear.  “Wendla—she’s a girl, isn’t she?  She’s a girl you knew…who died…your friend…but when we met, you were in pain—lonely—sick—you needed companionship, you needed people to love you…because you’d closed yourself off, Fiff said, you said, you told me…Melchior…”

            Gemma looked like she might faint, and Melchior shot up as if on command to hold her by the shoulders while she shook her head furiously and tears started erupting from her eyes.

            “Gemma—”

            “NO!”

            “Gemma, you don’t understand what you’re saying, you’re upset—”

            “Tell me what happened!  Everything!  What did you tell Howard, what was your life like, tell me!”

            “I don’t think you’re ready to hear this—”

            “READY?” She pushed him away.  “Damn it, Melchior!  I trusted you!  I knew your past hurt you and you’d tell me later, but you can tell Mr. Howard like it’s nothing and make it a secret between the two of you??  I’m the one you’re supposed to tell things to, Melchior!  Especially about this, about things that hurt you!”

            “Please, Gemma!” Melchior begged her.  “Lower your voice!”

            “DON’T you tell me what to do!” she railed, pushing past him and running to the door.  She turned on her heel to address him one final time.  “I don’t want you near me.  I don’t want you around.  Don’t come back to my house.  I can’t even look at you, Melchior.  It’s disgusting.  Apparently I don’t mean anything to you.  Thank you for the visit, Mr. Howard—and for enlightening me.”

 

            She slammed the door on her way out.

 

            Howard apologized until his lips nearly fell off with every “I’m sorry” that poured out of them, but Melchior would have none of them.  He thanked Howard for the visit and promised to come again soon—when things were less tense.

            He left and went back to his apartment, feeling inside the entire time that for the third time in his life, his entire world was crashing down around him.  The first time had been in his old life, following the deaths of Moritz and Wendla.  The second time was following Fiff’s death and finding Gemma again, but in such a state of grief that he wasn’t sure she’d make it out all right. 

            This time, his old life and his new life were colliding together in a magnificent crash that had pushed the one part of his life he cared about more than anything in the opposite direction.  After all his pain and work and wanting, he thought he’d finally gotten a hold on Gemma’s heart that wouldn’t be easily thrown off, not even by Wendla.

            Wendla, whose image still haunted him at night, but not without the face of Fiff and Gemma with it.  Yes, the nightmares still came, though never as bad as before.  Moritz and Wendla no longer taunted him with guilt but simply stared out at him, unable to touch him or talk to him but only to look with sad, dead eyes.  Not being with him was what hurt the most.  Fiff would always be happy in the nightmares, which was what killed him—he hadn’t changed a bit, even in death to him.

            He thought of Wendla from time to time, more than he’d like.  When he was alone or looking out a window, letting his mind wander, he’d remember her smile and the wind blowing through the blooming trees.  He’d remember the smell of hay and hesitant kisses and playing pirates and he’d close his eyes with the pang of guilt it brought, the pain of missing her still.

            He missed her.  Always would.  But he no longer was in love with her memory and had devoted himself entirely to Gemma. 

            Who was never meant to find out about his past for this reason.

            Melchior knew it was his mistake, that he should have told her as soon as he could about everything and let her judge for herself the nature of his past.  But he hadn’t trusted her with it.

            If he was in love with her, why couldn’t he trust her?  That was the question.  The answer should be that he could trust her because he loved her, that he had to.

 

            He had to make it right.  But he had to respect her wishes.  But he had to see her again, and soon, or he’d die. 

 

            But what was more important?  What he wanted or what she wanted?

 


	38. Chapter 38

He hadn’t seen her in such a long time, and he was unbelievably nervous.  He’d decided to walk over instead of taking a cab or carriage, but the closer he got to 5th Avenue, the more his hands began to shake.  He stopped a few times to wipe the sweat from his forehead before continuing.

            Really, he had no reason to be nervous.  It had been so long since they’d seen each other, but it was Gemma, after all.  She was probably as anxious to see him again as he was to see her.

            Taking a deep breath to steady his hands at the gate, he opened the wrought-iron entrance and marched up the green, flower-studded path to the front door and knocked.

            A new servant opened the door, startling him.  He’d expected to see Annie, but the stout little maid curtsied and still recognized him.  “Mr. Madison,” she said, wringing her hands on the front of her apron, “what a delight.  Miss Keeper is in the lounge, and she’s very excited to see you.”

            “And I her.  Wonderful!  May I come in?” Harry Madison said with an easy smile, which hid his ever-growing nerves.

            Not a lot in life could put off the famously jovial Madison, but almost every situation that had to do with Gemma put him in a state of unease.  A runaway bride, a broken engagement, a public scrape with humiliation—he’d deemed it prudent to spend some time in France “on business” for a few months until the air was cleared.

            Still, he couldn’t wait forever to see his friend again.  He thought it had been long enough for her to recover from everything and continue on with her life.  And it looked like she was right.

            “Harry!” he heard her cry from another room, and she stepped out into the hall and ran full-speed at him. 

            All his worries flew away; she was hugging him once more and all seemed to be forgiven.  “Gemkat!” he smiled into her thick hair, rubbing her back and stepping away to get a good look at her.  “As beautiful as ever.  And back in dress form.”

            Gemma rolled her eyes and spun around in her cream day gown.  “I’ve found recently that they’re not all bad.”

            “Indeed,” he said, pulling off his coat and hat to give to the maid.  “Sorry to interrupt your reading, my girl—I couldn’t wait to see you again.”

            “And I you,” she laughed.  Taking him by the hand, she led him to the library and asked the maid to bring in some tea and coffee.

            Harry whistled when she opened the mahogany door to her father’s library.  “What a place,” he said, stroking the giant leather tomes.  “Paradise for you, I’m sure.”

            Gemma breathed in the leather smell and sat down in her father’s chair, throwing decorum out the door.  “Most of the books are about business, or are records of trade shipments.  But I can pretend they’re all fantastic books on faraway places.  Speaking of which, tell me about France!”

            “France?  It’s exactly what you’d expect it to be,” Harry was quick to shrug.  “Artsy.  Even dirty in some places.  Well, a lot of places.  But exciting, when not stuffed with business.”

            “I’m sure it was spectacular,” she breathed, closing her eyes to imagine it.  “Cafés, art, that tower they built a few years ago…I keep seeing it on all the promotional material…”

            “The Eiffel Tower?  Not that great.  I mean, it’s essentially a giant steel letter Y—upside down.”

            Gemma shook her head vehemently.  “Harry, it’s a cultural thing.  It’s being in a different place.”

            “You went different places—when you ran away.”

            Gemma’s easygoing smile brought on by faraway dreams disappeared.  “Yes…I suppose I did.”

            “I’m sorry.  Is it too early to talk about?”

            “N-no, it’s just that…I’ve never talked about it before.  Did you know,” she said with a weak smile returning to her face, “that no one’s ever asked me before?  Where I really went?”

            “Not even Melchior?  Surely Melchior.”

            “No, she said firmly.  “Not Melchior.”  Then once again, her face softened, and her lower lip began to quiver as her eyes glazed over; Harry was sure she was going to cry.

            “Are you all right, Gemkat?”

            “Yes,” she said, looking dazed.  “I’m not going to cry.  I’ve just figured something out, that’s all.”

            Harry waited patiently for her to continue.

            “It’s just that, well….Harry, I…I sent Melchior away.”

            “You WHAT?” he nearly exploded out of his seat.

            She winced.  “Please don’t be angry!  I knew you might be, since I picked him instead of you—I just didn’t want you to be angry with him for not taking good enough care of me.”

            Harry sat down and straightened himself up before saying in a cold, clear voice, “I don’t think you understand how truly selfish what you just said made you seem.”

            Gemma stayed silent, processing his words before arguing against them.  “Selfish?”

            “You rejected the love of your life—and don’t deny that’s what he is, because it’s true—because you think he didn’t take good enough care of you?  I may not know him very well, but I know your Melchior, and he would give his life—anything—for you.  He’s given everything for you.”

            “He didn’t care enough to tell me the truth about his past!  He still doesn’t!” Gemma tried to argue.

            “And you didn’t care enough to tell him the truth about where you’d run off to.”

            Gemma bit her lip and stayed quiet for a long time.  Then finally, in a tiny voice, she said, “I know.  That’s what I just realized a minute ago.”

            Harry sighed.  “Oh, Gem.  I didn’t mean to upset you.  I’ve missed you, and you know it.  I’m happy to see you again.”

            She laughed a wiped an errant tear from her eye.  “Even after all that I’ve done to you?  Harry?”

            “Ah, it’s not so bad.”  Harry paused, suddenly feeling awkward.  “You know, I’ve…met someone.”

           

            Gemma felt as if a giant question mark popped through her brain like a bullet, and nothing at all made sense.  Harry?  Her Harry?  “Someone”?

            She might not be in love with him, and she never had been, but he had cared for her.  He might have even been in love with her at one point.  Somehow, she thought that made him hers, like she had claim over him for all time. 

            She’d never considered that he’d find another, after she’d broken his heart the way she did.  It felt like she was being cheated on.

            And then she realized—how selfish she truly was.

            Thinking she could claim such a good man as Harry, and no woman would ever get him?

            Thinking she could blame Melchior for keeping his secrets, when she’d neglected to tell her own?

            She was a fool, but she wasn’t a stupid or uncaring one: she forced an interested smile on her face and spoke through clenched teeth, “Who’d you meet?”

            “Well, I didn’t just meet her.  You remember her, from Marny’s coming out party—Miranda Houghton?  She was vacationing in Paris for a few weeks while I was there, and we met up again.  We spent a lot of time together…and I—we—well, we’re getting married.”

            Gemma gulped back a yelp, which Harry twitched at before continuing.  “Sometime this fall, when she returns from England.  You’re invited, of course.”

            “Of course,” she repeated, dazed.  “Of course.  My congratulations, she’s a lovely girl and I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”

            “Really?” he asked, and though she wasn’t looking at him, Gemma could feel the hope in his voice.

            “Really.”  She bit the inside of her lip to look up at him with an encouraging smile, but when she finally did look up, a gaping mouth replaced her smile.

            Harry looked happy.  _So_ happy.  His eyes were crinkling at the edges and his smile stretched from ear to ear.  “Harry,” she said incredulously, “you love her.”

            He shrugged as nonchalantly as possible, but the absurd smile couldn’t be wiped away.  “Randy’s wonderful.  She’s charming, fun, lively, she’s….Gem, she’s everything.  She’s everything to me.”

            “I know,” she said, trying to keep tears out of her throat.  “I can hear it in your voice.”  Gemma sniffed, trying to maintain composure as a new wave of happiness came over her.  Harry had _found_ someone.  Who’d have thought?  “Randy?” she asked with a note of disdain in her voice.  “Of all the nicknames for Miranda?  Mira?  Randa? You picked Randy?”

            “It just fit.  She’s a tomboy, like you, Jimmy.”

            Gemma grinned and looked down, fond memories washing over her.  Memories that were accompanied by thoughts of _him_.

            Harry noticed, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.  “You miss him, don’t you?”

            Gemma thought of arguing, but what was the point?  “Yes.  More than anything.”

            “Then why are you still here?”

            She wiped away at her eyes.  “I don’t know, Harry—I—every time I think I’m ready for this relationship, something happens that show me that I’m not mature enough yet, that I haven’t learned enough to manage loving someone.  I—I don’t know, Harry, I—”

            “Miss Keeper?” the maid asked, popping in through the door with a tray of tea.  “Oh, I’m sorry, miss,” she said, noticing Gemma’s quiet tears.  She set down the tea tray and avoided her mistress’ gaze.  “I came to bring you the tea and coffee you asked for.  Oh, and to give you your letters for the day.”

            The maid pulled a bundle of letters out of her apron pocket and handed them over to her charge before curtsying and leaving the room.  Gemma picked them up and carelessly looked through them.

            “An invitation to a university,” she mused aloud.  “Barnard College?”

            “What?”

            “A college is inviting me to attend.  They were just established eight years ago, a women’s college.”

            “A chance to be educated at a university?” Harry said excitedly.  “Gem, you could study writing professionally.  You could make a career.”

            She looked a little intrigued, but she stuffed the idea of Barnard away and scowled.  “I already had a career.  I—”

            Harry watched her freeze as she came upon a worn, thick envelope.  Her eyes widened to an almost painful degree as she clutched the envelope, staring at the address of the sender.

            “It’s from him, isn’t it?”

            She said nothing. 

            Harry sighed and stood up, walking around the desk to put his hand on her shoulder.  “Gemma, you worry about being ready.  You’re never going to be ready.  It’s part of love.  But there’s a boy that loves you and you love him.  You need to be with him.”

            Gemma looked up at him with enormous grey eyes, no longer brimming with unshed tears.  “I’m scared.”

            She shot up to hug him, squeezing the life out of him as he whispered to her, “Be with him, Gemma.  Go to him.  Now.  Don’t wait.”

            “But the letter?”

            “Can wait.  Don’t waste time.”

            She nodded vigorously and threw the letter on the floor, not even sparing a passing glance to anyone as she marched out of the library and through the front door.  She couldn’t be bothered with a coat or hat or wallet.

            Harry watched her leave through the window in the hall, seeing her fearless and determined gait that didn’t quite match the dazed look on her face.  She walked a few blocks and then hailed a passing cab carriage, hurriedly giving instructions to the driver before they were off.


	39. Chapter 39

In her mind, she was moving too fast to think—the jarring _ba-bump ba-bump_ of the carriage wheels on cobblestone blended smoothly together, making her feel like she was aboard a comet hurtling toward him.

            The city seemed dark now even though they were only approaching dusk, but Gemma didn’t look at her surroundings; she watched the back of the horse pulling the carriage and saw the door to Melchior’s flat in her mind’s eye.

            She didn’t stop moving when the cab stopped, literally throwing the largest available bill on her at the driver and launching herself off the carriage and onto the pavement, making a splash when she landed in a puddle.  She kept up the pace even as mud soaked her creamy skirts, sparing a glance at the roiling sky.  It was going to storm.

            Gemma ignored the pesky raindrops starting to flick her eyeballs as she walked up the sidewalk, sidestepping trash and puddles for a few yards until there it was: the deep rust-colored brick of the apartment building, the grey tinge on the brick from years of pollution and smog, and the rickety iron rail up to the door.  Melchior was only a few floors away from her now.

            Door flung open, Gemma let her hypersensitive ears and fingertips take her to the upper floors and led herself with the assured touch of the banister up the creaky stairs while her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside.

            Stair after stair after stair, creak after creak after creak.  He’d hear her coming. 

            Finally, she was all the way up to his flat, and she didn’t hesitate for a moment to use her shoulder to shove open the door—a key was really unnecessary at this point.

 

            Gemma’s heart sank when she saw that the flat was empty.  It wasn’t dusty or abandoned—she could see dishes in his sink and a fire dying slowly in his stove.  He must have stepped out for the day.

            That made her feel less foolish.  She closed the door behind her and walked up to Melchior’s broken mirror piece to try her best to clean up.  She’d looked like a princess earlier today, with a tight chignon and stunning yet no-nonsense dress.  Now, loose pieces of hair had fallen from the chignon and the hem of her creamy dress was dingy with mud and puddle-water and speckled with raindrops.

            Why was it that she always looked frightful when she came here?

            Before she could even hope to change or distract herself, Gemma heard the jangle of keys on the outside of the door, and she turned with a happy gasp to see it opened.

            Melchior didn’t even take his hand from the doorknob and keyhole when he first spied the girl.  A light eyebrow raised on his face to match his gaping mouth.

            Gemma smoothed her skirts.  “So…um…I broke in.  Again.  You should really get new locks, Melchior.”

            He nodded and closed the door behind him, setting down paper and pens on his desk before facing her once more, arms crossed.

            “Melchi,” she said, glancing up at him shyly, “I’m sorry.”

            “Did you read my letter?”

            “Your letter?  Oh, no—I just—I got it my house today, and when I saw you’d sent me something, I felt so—well, I came as soon as the maid gave me the post.  I figured we could talk about its contents later.”  She rocked back and forth on her heels.  “Melchior, I don’t know what else to say.  I don’t know what came over me just now, I just had to see you again.  I’m sorry I got so angry when I’ve kept my own secrets from you.  From now on, I keep nothing from you, truly.”

            “So you didn’t read it?” he pressed, looking more scared every second Gemma talked.

            “N-no.  I just—I’m sorry, I’m such a mess right now, all my thoughts are in a jumble!” she cried, pushing her hair back and looking at Melchior desperately.  She couldn’t help herself: there he was again, tawny curls, sparkling hazel eyes, every part of him she knew and loved.

            She closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his neck, quickly darting her head down to duck it underneath his chin so she wouldn’t see his reaction to her spontaneous embrace.  Gemma squeezed her eyes shut and breathed in deeply, relishing the ability to smell Melchior’s skin again and know what it was like to be held by him.

            It made it all the more of a surprise when he almost immediately put his arms around her, stroking the back of her head.  Gemma was spinning in how safe she felt, being cradled again by Melchior. 

            “I’m sorry I was angry at you,” she mumbled into his collar.  “You could keep your past a secret from me for years and years, and I won’t blink an eye, because I trust that you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.  Can we just forget about this little tiff?  Will you take me back?”

            “Oh, guess,” Melchior mock-ordered, pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead and holding her at arm’s length.  “Though I’m sorry you didn’t read my letter.  It was everything you wanted to know, anyway.”

            “You wrote me your life story?”

            Melchior gestured to his trash bin, where pile upon pile of crumpled up paper sat.  “It took me weeks to figure out what exactly to write to you.  I wanted to come see you and explain myself to you, but you told me not to see you again, so I figured my only chance without forcing you to see me was a letter.  A letter you might read, and if you believed what I wrote, you might have been inclined to come over.  Apparently, though,” he said, getting some clothes for Gemma to change into, “I’m irresistible enough without the letter.  You came back to me.”

            “Were you afraid I wouldn’t?” Gemma asked, taking the clothes.  “Because I was.”

            “Well, you know I’m not a real believer in romance, but I believe in truth,” Melchior pointed out, sitting on the couch and covering his eyes.  “And the one thing that is true in my life is what I have with you, Gemma Katherine.  One of us had to come back, and I was willing for it to be me.”

            Gemma changed behind the couch, just a little disappointed that Melchior didn’t even try to look at her in her undergarments, and joined him on the couch in a shirt and pants.  “And if it had been you who’d cracked first?”

            He smiled and pulled her down next to him.  “I’d have come running to your door, begging for forgiveness.  I’m the one in the wrong—I should have told you about my life from the moment you asked.”

            “Let’s not talk about that anymore.”

            Melchior nodded absently and Gemma curled up against him, marveling at the solid sound of his heartbeat.  She watched evening descend outside while Melchior’s fingers pulled the pins out of her chignon and combed through her hair until it was all around her shoulders.

            He didn’t light a light as it got darker, and the smoulders of the fire were the only source of light in the small room.  Blue light from the starshine outside covered them both, and Gemma swore there was no better feeling in the world than having Melchior’s fingers lightly combing through her hair.           

            “It might not be an issue for you,” he said after a while, “but I don’t think I can let my past looming around without you knowing about it.”

            “But I told you, I don’t care about it!” she said with a frustrated sigh.  She turned in Melchior’s arms to face him, trying her best to look serious and make her eyes bore into his.  Her eyes were his weak spot.  “I love you.  I don’t need to hear a word.”

            “But I need you to,” he said, looking just as seriously back into her eyes.  The moonlight painted all of their features shades of blue, and his hazel eyes looked murky compared to her crystalline blue-grey ones.  Melchior couldn’t help but think that they looked like ice.

            He began slowly, gently shoving her up and into a sitting position.  “I think…it would be best, before we went on as a couple, if I told you everything that happened to me before I came here.  The whole truth, nothing left out.  And the truth of the whole story is, if I don’t tell you now, it will never stop haunting me.”

            Gemma frowned, grabbing his hand.  “This is going to be big, isn’t it?  I’m not going to like it.”

            “Not one bit.”  He smiled weakly.  “I’m terrified to tell you.  You’re going to hate me.  You might even run away from me again.”

            “I promise you now that I’ll hear you out.  And I won’t leave you.”

            “You say that now.  No, Gemma—” he protested when she tried to lean back against his chest, “—you need to look at me and hear this.  You need to see my eyes and really hear what I have to say.  And don’t say a word until I’m finished.  Can you do that for me?”

             She obeyed him, crossing her legs on the couch and folding her hands in her laps.  She zoomed her focus in on Melchior’s face and tried her best to look like an owl, pursing and puckering her lips and widening her eyes until they bugged out of her head.

  
    The mock-solemnity became genuine when Melchior sighed and looked out the window once more, lost in the stars.  Gemma’s gaze softened when he finally began to speak.

  
    “It’s dark out now,” he said quietly, looking intensely at the moon.  He shrugged and looked back at Gemma.  “It makes everything look blue to me--your skin.  Your hair.  Your eyes.  They’re all shades of blue, like a painting.  It was this dark when we met at the fountain in Central Park.”

  
    “The Angel of the Waters,” she nodded, urging him on.  
    “You tried to get me to tell you about this then,” said Melchior, his gaze falling to his lap.  “You got me to tell you where I was from, you told me you thought it must be so peaceful, like a fairy tale.  And Gemma?  It was.”

  
    She heard him take in a sharp inhale, and he went on.  “I was born in Frühlingsberg, Germany, in 1878.  Nowhere near a city, no big industrial buildings--just rolling fields, a small village, tiny cottages and stores.  The same people living there, growing up together with their children growing up together.  Generations of neighbors and friends and marriages, everyone knowing each other.  There was a little church, and a schoolhouse.  And there were always children.”

  
    Melchior laughed, lost in memories, and continued.  “Children were always running around, playing games and exploring the rivers and forests.  Not me.  Not when I started school.  But what am I doing--this must sound like gibberish to you.  Facts.  I need facts.”

  
    “Tell me when you were born,” she said, encouraging him.  “Who were your parents?  Brothers?  Sisters?”

  
    He seemed renewed, searching his mind for solid facts.  “December 14th, 1878.  My father was Edmund Gabor.  Mother was Fanny Gabor.  Sister was Elena.”  He smiled, easing into memories.  “Father owned a general store, so we never wanted for anything.  But he was always kind, reserved, a scholar like me.  He’d take meticulous stocks of our inventory and keep books full of records.  He’d read behind the cash register on slow days.  He’d read to me, when I was little.  Mother...Mama...she was wonderful.  Intelligent, and gracious, even if she had a different opinion than you.  She was reserved too, like Papa.  That’s why they made such a great match, I think--they were always so calm and collected together.  They were a team.”

  
    Gemma took his hand to emphasize an unspoken point: they were a team, too.

  
    He squeezed her hand back.  “They’d love you.  Mama especially.  They loved me, too, but they seemed to be...suspicious of me.  I guess it makes sense, looking back.  But anyway, I was a good kid.  An ideal child, in fact: smiling, sweet, curious, calm, smart.  Everyone remarked to my parents that I was such a model child.  Many parents were even jealous, especially poor Otto’s.

  
    “It’s...difficult to remember my thoughts, as a child,” he said, thinking each word through.  “I remember knowing what the adults thought of me, knowing that they expected things from me. The suck-up in me actually liked having expectations from other people.  But mostly I just remember things in a daze--playing pirates with the children, running around, lying under trees, looking at the sky.  I suppose you never got to do any of that,” he added apologetically.  “Being a kid.  Exploring.  I did, and I don’t recall a lot of it.  It’s all so blurry to me, even now.  But I remember coming in from a wrestling match with one of the boys--Georg--and my father took one look at my muddy clothes and said, ‘Melchior, if you have even a prayer of being a respectable gentleman, you will stop playing such childish games and educate yourself more.’

  
    “He wasn’t trying to be mean--he was a father scolding his dirty son.  Still, from that moment on, I stopped playing games with the other kids.  I started looking around me and seeing the world for what it was, or at least what I thought it was.  The adults had all the grown up freedoms, while we children had to wait in line for our privileges.  I didn’t realize that we children were the ones who were really free.  How could I have known?  I was only 10, 11 maybe.  Before long I was reading every day and night, staying up late to finish new books, and I came to the conclusion that adults were keeping us from everything, hiding what they knew to keep us all in the dark.  This was going to be the biggest mistake of my life.”

  
    “That doesn’t sound like you,” she said.  “Well, the diligent reading does, but not the conclusion.  I’ve never known you to be particularly rebellious.”

  
    A twinkle returned to Melchior’s eye.  “Oh, haven’t you?”

  
    Gemma pursed her lips and thought out loud.  “Sarcastic?  Yes.  Infuriating?  Definitely.  But insubordinate?  Not really.”

  
    “Stop interrupting,” he joked, “this is serious.”

  
    She coughed to stop laughing.  “Continue.  Why was that the biggest mistake of your life?”

  
    “Well, that’s a question with an extremely difficult answer that’s really the crux of the matter.  So let me start off with some easier plot points: the boys I grew up with.  Otto, Georg, Hanschen, Ernst...and the girls that lived in Frühlingsberg, too.  Martha, Thea, Ilse, and Anna.”

  
    “Tell me about them. What were they like?”

  
    “Silly,” he said right off the bat, but he grew more somber as he thought it over.  “No, they weren’t silly.  They were young.  We all were.  We weren’t mature, but we weren’t silly.  We were trying to be as carefree as possible... Ernst was always quiet, and simple.  He didn’t like to play tag or wrestle, but he watched the other boys play.  Georg was always a jokester, Otto stuck to him like glue.  Otto always felt a little left out, because he was pretty emotional.  It didn’t click well with the boys who were tough and masculine, like Georg and Hanschen and I.  Hanschen was always self-assured.  He knew he was handsome and smart, and he could get whatever he wanted.  

“And the girls?  We didn’t see them as much when we started school, but we’d see them around and remember playing together as children.  Martha was slow and sweet, always kind and gentle and destined to be a mother, I always thought.  Anna was like her, but more quiet and bright, and Thea was just a fanatic--she was frenetic and boisterous, but she’d try and contain it all in, so she just seemed like a jumping bean.  Ilse was the...outcast.”

“Lots of outcasts in your group.”

“No kidding.  But Ilse wasn’t an emotional outcast, she was a literal one.  Her...her home life, it was...” Melchior’s voice started to choke up, and Gemma knew they were approaching it: the past that Melchior was so scared of.  The past she should be scared of, if she was smart.  

She swallowed what was starting to be a lump in her throat and squeezed Melchior’s hand.  He looked at her appreciatively and moved in a few inches.  “Ilse’s family was horrible to her.  They...abused her.  I don’t know how much, and I’ll never know.  I’ll never know what happened to any of them.  All I know is that when Ilse was 12, she’d finally had enough of all the pain, and she left her house.  We all were told never to speak to her again, and that she was dead, but we still saw her, running wild through the forests with her new Bohemian friends.  She joined an artist colony, and they liked her well enough and took care of her.  But can you imagine?  12 years old, and kicked out by your family, shunned by your community, sleeping with artists and modeling for them to live?”

“I can’t imagine,” she said truthfully.  

“We tried not to think about it.  We knew, but we had problems of our own.  Martha, poor Martha, her father beat her and locked her up every night, after...well, he had his way with her.  Ernst was always so nervous and quiet, especially with just us boys together.  In the showering rooms after gym class, when we all went swimming together, if we ever spent the night in a fort.  Especially if Hanschen was around.”

    Gemma gasped.  “You don’t mean he was...”

  
    “In love with Hanschen?  I don’t think he knew.  No one did.  All I know is that once we all became teenagers, things took a turn for the worse.  Everyone changed.”

  
    “Adolescent Melchior,” Gemma whistled.  “He sounds dangerous.”

  
    “He was,” Melchior said darkly.  “I turned 14 and the world seemed mine.  The adults might have been hiding information and freedom from me, and their ways might have seemed backwards, but I had armed myself with an education and conviction that I was the solution.  I was their golden boy, but I would change everything.  I stopped believing in their authority, and once I did that, I stopped believing in a lot of things: power, love, heaven or hell.  Even God.”

  
    “But you do now?”

  
    “Sort of.  It’s complicated.  Anyway, I thought I knew everything, and no one could stop me.  And maybe I would have gone on to great things, if I hadn’t let my ego ruin everything.”

  
    They were both silent for a moment, and Gemma asked as quietly as she dared, “You didn’t mention Moritz and Wendla.”  
    He remained silent.

  
    “I haven’t forgotten their names,” she said.  “Everything you’ve told me about your past so far hasn’t been earth-shattering, and something was terrible enough to make you run away to America.  Something was awful enough to separate you from your family and try and make it in New York City, a new city in a new country with a new language.  And I think you were running away from them.  So who were they?”


	40. Chapter 40

Melchior’s eyes were squeezed shut, and in the darkness of the room all Gemma could see was the shadow of a tear plopping in his lap.  “Moritz Stiefel,” he said, “was my best friend.  He was my brother and greatest confidant.  My partner in crime.  I was always the leader in everything I did, but Moritz was always my second in command, my sidekick, supporting me.  We were inseparable.  And that should have been it.  But it didn’t work out that way.”

    He sighed, and when he opened his eyes, she could see tears glistening in them.  “Moritz was...always a little needy.  His father was strict, his mother was never there, and he was...not quite right.  Moritz was always too much for himself to handle, physically--too tall and gangly to control.  His hair,” he laughed quietly, wiping at the corners of his eyes, “was always a mess.  Like a brown, fluffy bird’s nest.  He had big brown eyes, kind of droopy and sleepy.  He was adorable, you always wanted to give him a hug.  Well, if you knew him like I did, you wanted to.  Moritz was so funny and kind, and he was always so generous.  But when we got...older...he stopped knowing what to do with himself.”

  
    “What to do with himself?  How?”

  
    Melchior let go of her hand, starting to blush against his nature.  He’d been so open when he was young, at ease with everything sexual.  Why now, in front of Gemma of all people, did he suddenly feel so embarrassed?

  
    “When we became teenagers,” he started slowly, “we had a sort of...awakening.  All of us, every child in the town.  We all started feeling...changes in ourselves.  Not just mental and emotional ones.”  He took a deep breath.  “Sexual ones.  We began to feel those...urges...and while that’s normal, we found out, the adults didn’t offer any help.  We were lost, feeling all these new, incredible, terrifying things, and no one had any insight.  We thought we were dying.  We knew something huge was happening, but it felt like something evil, something confusing.  Not to me.

  
    “I educated myself as soon as I was caught off guard.  And, though I knew the adults would never approve, I became a fanatic.  I looked at everything I could about...sex.  Not only was I intrigued, but it cancelled out all my belief in God and in grown-ups.  They were purposefully ignoring this, keeping us in the dark.  I wouldn’t stand for it.

  
    “We all coped in our own way, but Moritz...Moritz had nothing and no one.  No one could explain why he felt things...down there, no one could explain the vivid dreams that kept him up at night... I was the only one who noticed it was hurting him.”  Melchior looked imploringly into Gemma’s eyes, asking forgiveness for what he was about to tell.  “He was sleeping through class, he’d jump at the drop of a hat, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to explain what was going on in his body.  I even relished the chance to share my knowledge, to show once again that I was superior.”  He chuckled bitterly.  “I always wanted to show I was the best.  Even with my closest friend in the world, it was a competition.  What kind of friend would do that?”

  
    “It’s--understandable,” Gemma added uselessly.  She didn’t know the answer.  She didn’t like the way this was going.  The Melchior she knew wasn’t this proud boy with a rebellious streak.  He edged on cruel.

  
    “He asked me not to tell him, but to write it down.  And I wrote everything I knew.  It only filled about three pages, but it was precious to me, it displayed my superiority.  I didn’t realize it was dynamite in my hands.  Knowing what was going on in his body didn’t help him at all, it just made things worse.  He couldn’t stop thinking about it, worrying about it, secretly wanting it more than anything, but he had no one to go to for...experience.  After all, no girl in town knew about sex, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have engaged in it before getting married.  That was the way, it was one of the things I found ridiculous: feeling ashamed about sex, assigning couples to be married, making it seem like something evil.  I found it purely biological.  We all had to do it in order to procreate, and it was supposed to feel so...good!”  Melchior said this strangely, throwing his head back and closing his eyes.  The way his voice got huskier when he said ‘good’ scared Gemma a little, making her shrink back, so he shook his head and gently grabbed her other hand.

  
    “He was more alone than ever before.  I didn’t even realize.  And then there was the schooling issue--at our school, you had to pass a grade and grab a slot in the next level, and they cut his slot, even though he made the grade.  He was hopeless, he had no future.  He’d been kicked out of school, he was a disgrace to his family, and there was no one.  I wasn’t there for him.  I had no clue.”

  
    Melchior took a shuddering breath, and tears started to fall from his eyes.  He squeezed Gemma’s hands, and she squeezed back despite her terror.  She’d never seen Melchior cry, even if it was silently.  She didn’t like this story, and she didn’t want to hear anymore.

  
    “Melchi,” she said, and he released her hands so she could put them on his cheeks.  “Melchi, you didn’t know what was happening to him.  Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.”

  
    “But it is!” he insisted, shaking his head.  “If I hadn’t given him the essay, if I’d paid more attention, stood up for him more, offered him help in any way, he might have gotten through the ordeal and made it.  He could have made it.  But he needed my help.”

  
    “Whatever Moritz’s problems were, they were his own,” Gemma said firmly.  “They were his and not yours, and his to deal with.  You were...trying to help.”

  
    Melchior sighed, letting the tears keep slipping down.  “Was I?”

  
    Gemma didn’t say anything; she brushed the water away from his cheeks and pressed her forehead against his.  She kept her eyes open, begging him to keep going.  She didn’t necessarily want to hear more, but they were so close.

  
    “Gemma, he...” Melchior began, getting caught on a sob.  Gemma’s resolve wavered as the silent tears turned into full out sobs that hitched in his chest.  She knew a good lover to Melchior would be brave enough to hear him out, but she was getting more frightened by the minute.  “Gemma, he killed himself.  Moritz Stiefel took a gun from his father’s desk and he stuck it up his throat--”

  
    “Melchior--”

  
    “--and he--what’s the expression?  Blew his brains out.”

  
    “Melchi, maybe you shouldn’t--”

  
    “They found him,” he continued, breath hitching still, “the next morning, with his brains all over a tree that had been behind him.  His head was barely attached to his body, they said.  No one could find the gun, someone had taken it.  But we all knew it had been a suicide.  And Gemma, I never got to see the body, but I can see it in my mind--the awkward, gangly limbs all splayed out on the cold ground, alone until the morning.  And squished together in a little coffin.  The head, unrecognizable, the bullet making the face distorted.  But the hair, that ridiculous hair--you could recognize that.”

  
    Melchior had stopped crying, and Gemma was stroking his curls.  “Shhh,” she whispered.  “It’s just your imagination.  You can’t--you don’t really see it.”

  
    He stayed silent.

  
    Gemma knew the next part of the story was coming, and that he was about to tell it, but he didn’t want to.  She didn’t want to hear it.  It was about the girl.

  
    Wendla.

  
    _Wendla._ It sounded, at first, monstrous.  Too big, like the name of a prima donna opera singer.  She could just imagine some busty soprano with a Viking helmet on, saying in a thick Russian accent, “I ahm VEHND-lah!”

  
    She wrinkled her nose, trying not to laugh at the thought.  She couldn’t help but dislike the name, because it signalled something bad to her: a rivalry already with some mysterious woman she didn’t know.

  
    It was ridiculous.  She didn’t even know this Wendla.  And the more she thought of it, the more the name sounded delicate, even pretty, in a foreign way.  Like some wildflower.

  
    Her curiosity got the best of her.  “Melchior,” she said, letting go of his face, “what did Wendla look like?”

  
    Melchior didn’t even wince.  He’d been steeling himself against this question, prepared for it.  Gemma waited in the dark, realizing that it had become so dark out that she could no longer see anything but the shadowy outline of his face.

  
    “Wendla Bergmann,” he said softly, looking down, “looked young.  She was fourteen.”   

  
    “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” Gemma said, stomach sinking with dread.  “Oh, no.  She must have been exquisite.”

  
    “She was beautiful,” Melchior agreed.  “In a child-like way.  She was just a child.  She had...rosy cheeks, small hands, big eyes.  Not like yours, nothing like yours.  A deep, warm brown, almond-shaped, twinkling.  They showed her emotions like an open book: demanding, pouty, ecstatic, confused.  They were so expressive.”

  
    Gemma felt her hatred grow.

  
    “She was small, curvy, finely-formed.  The prettiest girl in Frühlingsberg, ever since Ilse had run away.  Long, dark brown curls.  A huge smile.  A beauty by anyone’s standards.”

  
    Melchior was unapologetic, and he continued like a robot.  “We’d been friends as children, with Moritz and Ilse as our playmates.  I always was very tender to her, but when we started going to school, I never saw much of her.  I always had a little fascination with her, though--when I’d see her at the stream or walking around town.  I didn’t think about her when she wasn’t around, but when she was, I liked what I saw.

  
    “When we turned fourteen, I met her in the woods on accident one day: I was writing and she was gathering flowers for her mother.  We sat and talked a while, and from then on, I felt something different.  Ever since I’d become a teenager, I felt longing, and I wanted sexual contact.  But after sitting with her under the tree, looking up as the day turned to evening...holding her hand...I started to long for her.  I wanted her.  I’d think about her at night, what it would be like to touch one of those curls.  To hold her cheek in my hand.  To kiss her.

  
    “We met again in the field, and I tried my best to act normal around here.  I felt comfortable with her around, because something in her calmed me and brought me back to earth.  I was always angry at the world and fighting against it, but something about Wendla made me want to stop fighting and relax.  We spoke a little, and she revealed something that had been troubling her: her friend Martha accidentally let slip that her father beat her.  She didn’t know what else Martha’s father must have done to Martha, because Wendla was just as in the dark as everyone else.  All her mother had told her was not to kiss anyone unless he was her husband.

  
    “Her mother!” he groaned, backing away from Gemma.  Eyes shining with anger, he continued in a low voice, “Her mother was the worst, the cause of all our misfortune.  She never wanted her daughter to grow up; she didn’t find it necessary to explain to Wendla what was going on in her body.  What sex was, how children were conceived.  Wendla told me once that she’d always told her, ‘In order to bear a child, a woman must love her husband, as she can love only him, with her whole heart.’  She promised that was what it was, and I can’t really blame her for not wanting to tell Wendla.  No parent wanted to tell their child, especially in our village.  It’s the fact that she didn’t take responsibility...”

  
    “Responsibility?”

  
    “Frau Bergmann was in for a nasty surprise,” he said, a sarcastic grin curling on the edge of his lips.  “Wendla had the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew, with the exception of Fiff.  She felt so sorry for Martha, since her own mother and father treated her like a princess.  She wanted to truly empathize.  So she asked me, that day in the meadow, to take a switch from the tree, and to--to--hit her.”

  
    Gemma gasped.  “You...you didn’t do it.  Did you?  Could you?”

  
    Melchior groaned again, rubbing his temples.  “I didn’t want to.  I couldn’t see the point.  Being beaten wouldn’t help Martha at all, but she insisted that she wanted to feel Martha’s pain.  She wanted to feel pain, she...she told me that she couldn’t...feel anything...”  Melchior’s voice hardened.  “I hit her once.  I didn’t try very hard at all, and she noticed it.  She taunted me to hit her more, hit her harder.  I wasn’t going to... Then she said please.  Wendla begged me to hit her with the switch, and something in me broke.  I was so violently angry, out of the blue, that some girl who didn’t know anything about real life and real struggles was asking me to hit her, like some martyr.  I saw red, I couldn’t think clearly, so I did as she asked.  I hit her a few times, I knew it hurt.  I could feel the force of the switch, I could feel her twitching as I held her arm, and I could hear her holding in tears.  She lied and said it wasn’t enough, that she couldn’t feel a thing.  I was blind, I was angry, and something in me, something primal, let loose.  I abandoned the switch, I beat her for real--as best as a 14-year-old boy could do.”

  
    “Melchi, no!” Gemma cried, voice breaking.  “You couldn’t do something like that, you couldn’t!”

  
    “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into the night, and Gemma didn’t know whether he was apologizing to her or to some memory.  “It didn’t last very long.  Only a few seconds, really.  But there was no excuse.  I slapped her and kicked her and threw her to the ground.  She was crying in a heap, sobbing, and there were red welts on the backs of her legs.  I couldn’t believe what I had done.  I was speechless.  Gem, I ran away from her.”

  
    Melchior hadn’t broken into tears, and an awkward, uneasy silence hung between them.  Gemma knew it was wrong, that hurting and beating a little girl was wrong.  She knew she should be disgusted with Melchior.  She knew she should look at him and see what he had done, that she should imagine those hands she loved to hold bearing a switch.

  
    “You know,” she said softly, “I’m trying to think of you badly.  The situation certainly was strange, with the girl asking you to.  Begging you to.  But it was wrong, it was evil of you.  The weird thing is, though, I still find myself loving you right now.”

  
    “We’ll see.”

  
    “Melchior, we aren’t all angels.  We all have dark sides, parts of us that think evil things, even act on them.  You didn’t want to do it, you were just...overcome.  You said something in you broke.  I can relate, you know I can.”

  
    “Gemma, I am ashamed--more than you know or can possibly fathom--about beating Wendla, but it doesn’t compare to what comes next,” he sighed.

  
    “And what comes next?” she asked, trying not to narrow her eyes in suspicion.  “I know she dies in the end, but you didn’t beat her to death...did you?”

  
    “No,” he said.  “I didn’t.  I avoided her at all costs, I couldn’t face her after what I’d done to her.  But I saw her, heard her, and felt her everywhere.  Somehow, in some sick, masochistic way, I wanted her more after that.  At this point, I’d never been more confused in my life.  I felt caught, alone, trapped in my head.  Alone, different than everyone else.  You know what a dangerous thing it is to be a prisoner of your own mind.  That’s what I was, and I fought it more and more every day.  Apparently, she was feeling the same way, along with her own overwhelming sense of guilt.  So she went to find me.”

  
    “Oh, no,” Gemma breathed.  Here it was.  It was approaching now, the thing Melchior was most ashamed of.  She steeled herself against it, but she still felt hopelessly vulnerable.

  
    “A storm was coming.  It’s always raining whenever it’s most important.  Our first kiss was in the rain,” he reminded her, “and it’s raining now.”

  
    Gemma was surprised to hear the thunder and rain pelting the roof of the apartment.  Why hadn’t she heard it before?  Had it been raining this hard the entire time?

  
    “The clouds were dark, and the air was full of water.  I’d been hiding in my barn, in the hayloft, where it was soft.  The hay smelled so sweet, and warm, and the humidity filled my head.   I felt safe there, but still--so alone, so confused.  I had been thinking about Wendla, and about everything going on in my head, when she came inside looking for me.  And I might not remember a lot of specifics about my childhood, because I spent a lot of time trying to forget--but I remember what happened when she found me in the hayloft.  Practically word for word.

  
    “I was so peaceful, up there alone.  I was listening to the thunderclouds and letting my senses run wild.  I felt like I was part of the barn, smelling the hay, feeling the straw on my fingers and hearing the rain start against the wood, tasting the air on my tongue.  Do you know the feeling,” Melchior asked, a little self-consciously, “when you’re alone at night time, and you can’t see anything from your bed, but you can feel everything going on around you?”

“I suppose so,” she conceded.  “It always make me feel sort of small.”

“Yes.  Small.  Vulnerable.  But somehow a part of it all, a part of everything around you.

That’s how I felt, vulnerable and powerful.  But then _she_ came,” Melchior seethed, and as he closed his eyes and really fell into the memory, Gemma could almost imagine it herself, action for action.

  
    She withdrew her hands from his and held herself, holding on tight as she could see Melchior relive the memory as he told it to her.  
  
    _He heard Wendla’s voice calling to him before he saw her, but the second her youthful voice reached his ears he cringed away from it.  He’d been alone, liked being alone.  He didn’t think anyone was going to bother him here._

  
_“There you are!” she said, trying to sound practical and scolding when Melchior could hear the hidden emotions in her voice: hope, relief, triumph, longing..._

  
_“Go away!” he yelled, pressing himself against the wall of the hayloft.  “Please!”  He clutched his legs to his chest and resisted the urge to rock.  She was here.  He was so ashamed, he couldn’t help but think of what had happened the last time they met._

  
_Wendla was unfazed.  She launched into a prepared warning: “There’s a storm coming, you know.  You can’t sit sulking in some hayloft.”  The soft accusation made him feel like a child.  She was taunting him.  Why was she here?_

  
_“Out.”_

  
_“Everyone’s at church,” she continued, determined to get more out of him.  “Rehearsing for our Michaelmas chorale?”  Melchior wasn’t looking at her, couldn’t look at her, but he heard the small note of satisfaction and pride when she added, “I slipped out.”_

  
_“Yes.  Well.”_

  
_“Your friend, Moritz Stiefel, is absent,” Wendla continued, undeterred.  She went on in a conspiratorial whisper.  “Someone said he’s been missing all DAY--”_

  
_“Perhaps,” he snapped, voice dripping with hatred, “he’s had his fill of Michaelmas.”_

  
_“Perhaps.”_

  
_He’d hurt her feelings, he knew.  She must have come hoping for reconciliation, but how could he take her seriously with this tedious small talk?  Wendla was such a child.  He knew she could be so much more than how she acted, such a prim little schoolgirl.  If he could open her mind to what the world really was, how it was so much than what her precious mama had taught her, maybe she’d understand._

_But no one understood.  No one but Melchior._

_Wendla waited awkwardly for a reply, but when none came, she said quietly, “You know--I_ _have your journal.”_

_That got him.  It had been missing for days.  He’d been worried that it was lost forever, or worse: found by an adult._

  
_He turned slowly toward her, releasing his legs and raising his eyebrows in hope.  “You do?”_

  
_She nodded eagerly, and Melchior couldn’t help but notice how heartbreakingly beautiful she was, just in that moment.  It weakened the resolve, seeing how ruddy her cheeks were from running.  Looking at her warm, dark eyes in the equally dark barn; they seemed safe, like a harbor in a storm.  And how that dress clung to her curvy, tiny form in the stuffy heat._

  
_Melchior felt his temperature rise.  He couldn’t help it.  But still, he felt like a small child just wanting his book back._

  
_“You left it,” she explained, and her face fell at the memory.  “...The other day.”_

  
_Both stared pointedly at each other, letting their shame freeze them in place for a few painful seconds.  Wendla looked down in embarrassment and changed the subject.  “I confess I tried reading part of it--”_

  
_That was too much.  Those were his private thoughts.  She had NO right._

  
_“Just leave it.”  His voice was terse, and he returned back to the wall, curled up in a tense ball._

  
_A crestfallen Wendla dropped the little leather book at the ladder and began to walk away, defeated.  Melchior wasn’t letting up today.  Unless--_

  
_Making up her mind in a moment of strength, she threw herself onto the creaky old ladder and climbed up to the hayloft.  Melchior shrank away as she let the apologies pour out of her mouth, uncontrolled.  “Melchior, I’m sorry about what happened,” she said urgently, voice breaking. “Truly I am!  I--I understand why you’d be angry at me, I don’t know what I was thinking!”_

  
_“Don’t!” he ordered fiercely, still turned away from her._

  
_“But how can I not--”_

  
_“Please, please, don’t!” he cried, trying to block out her anguished voice.  He tried a different tactic to make the girl go away--assuaging her fear.  “We were confused,” Melchior said deliberately.  “We were both just--”_

  
_“It’s my fault!”_

  
_“Wendla, please, no!” he roared, turning around sharply to face her.  He instantly wanted to regret it; their faces were inches apart and he could feel her breath on his face.  They were so close, too close for comfort.  But Melchior was entranced.  He didn’t break away.  “It was me.  All me,” he breathed.  “Something IN me started when I hit you--”_

  
_“--Something in me, too--” she began to protest, but Melchior cut her off._

  
_“No, no more!” he roared, throwing a hand out to keep her away.  He felt overwhelmed and violated in every way, for Wendla was attacking every part of him: his mind, his guilt, his wanting, his very soul!_

  
_“Please,” he begged in a strained voice.  “You should GO.”_

  
_He curled up once more, holding his knees to his chest and burying his face in his arms.  Still, he could hear her breathing a foot away, feeling as hurt as ever.  Melchior could only imagine her face: lower lip pouting, pretty brown eyes brimming with tears._   
_He felt, slowly but still surprisingly, a hand--HER hand--on his shoulder.  It stroked and petted his arm in what was meant to be a comforting way, but it just made every nerve in his arm catch fire with hopeless longing._

  
_“Won’t you come out to the meadow now, Melchior?” Wendla quietly asked.  “It’s dark in here, and stuffy...”_

  
_She was scared.  She didn’t like it in here, where it was so unknown and unsafe.  She knew she shouldn’t be here, that she belonged back with her friends rehearsing the songs for Michaelmas.  Her mama would be so excited to hear them; she might even buy her a new dress for the occasion..._

  
_Melchior could practically see a fox’s grin spread across her face as she tried a new tactic.  “We can run through the rain!” she offered in a low, persuasive voice.  “Get soaked to the skin--and not even care!”_

  
_A childish idea, but an enticing one.  Wendla, soaked to the skin, was an extremely desirable image.  On the other hand, she was genuinely trying to get over what he’d done to her, and she saw it as her own fault._

  
_Could he let it go?_

  
_Melchior wheeled around, kneeling on the straw-covered floor of the hayloft.  His hazel eyes sought hers: “Forgive me?”_   
_Wendla shook her head and smiled.  “It was me.  All me.”  She looked up at him with eyes full of love and understanding, and in a matter of seconds, she reached out to hold him as he leaned in to be held._

  
_And it was bliss._

  
_She cradled his head in her arms as he wound his around her waist, holding each other tightly.  They only meant a childish embrace, a conciliatory hug to put away the beating issue forever.  They didn’t mean anything more than a friendly touch, meant to forgive each other._

  
_But it didn’t end up that way.  Melchior could feel the loud, consistent beats of Wendla’s heart, so dependable and reassuring.  She was alive, and real, and safe.  And there was her heartbeat, which was quickening with each second, fluttering like a rabbit’s the longer the embrace lasted.  Her heart, underneath her chest, underneath the thin fabric of her dress._   
_He wanted her.  So badly.  He’d never wanted anything more._

  
_“I hear your heartbeat, Wendla,” he whispered like a child, wanting to burrow his face into the warmth of her body, but afraid to move--he was too close to her breasts.  To move now would be the end of his control._

  
_Wendla frowned, her heart picking up the pace.  “Melchi,” she addressed him, using his nickname in a worried tone, “I don’t know--”_

  
_He moved away and reversed the position, pulling her head to his chest.  “Everywhere I am,” he said, voice getting stronger, “I hear it beating.”_

  
_He could feel her tense up, not wanting to be so close to him, but some part of her wanting to relax.  Melchior could imagine her relaxing, melting into his hold.  It felt so good to have her warm cheek pressed against him._

  
_“And I hear yours,” she mumbled into his shirt.  He pulled away from the embrace to look down and see her hand, placed on his chest over his heart.  He looked down, incredulous, and then up at her.  Her eyes looked confused, but she’d undoubtedly put her hand there on purpose._

  
_He couldn’t take it anymore.  He pulled her back to him and pressed his lips to hers, crushing them with the force of his wanting.  Melchior had wanted to be gentle, and he knew he had no experience, but he was surprised how quickly he was learning.  It was just his lips on hers._  
  
Gemma had started to cry, against her will.  She didn’t want to, and she wasn’t making a scene, but there it was: she was letting hot tears of frustration drip down her face in the dark.  Thank goodness Melchior couldn’t see; he kept telling the story in the same dead monotone.  
  
    Damn Wendla.  
  
    _He was shocked, even a little hurt, when she pushed against him, trying to force words out of her lips that were connected to his.  “Nn--no!” she attempted to say as he continued the kiss, and he finally let her go.  “No, we’re not supposed to--”_

  
_“What?” he asked angrily.  It was obvious her silly mother had been filling her head with nonsense, that kisses were dangerous and evil.  Really, there was nothing more innocent than a kiss, nothing more perfect or simple!_

  
_“Not supposed to what?  Love?” asked Melchior again, incredulous.  He straightened up on his knees and took her by the shoulders, a little too fiercely.  “I don’t know, is there such a thing?”_

  
_His voice rose, and he loosened his grip.  He felt like trembling, as she was, but his words grew stronger with conviction.  Didn’t she feel how good that kiss was?  Didn’t she want more?  “I hear your heart,” he said simply, and an errant tear fell from Wendla’s eye as she shook her head against him.  “I can feel you breathing--everywhere.”_

  
_Melchior ducked his head down to look at Wendla and hold eye contact.  He had to make her understand how she made him feel.  “In the rain.  The hay.  Please.”  His voice grew thick and husky with desire.  “Please, Wendla!”_

  
_“Nn--!” Wendla tried to protest, but Melchior forced his lips on her again, relishing the soft, sweet, warm taste.  He tried to coax her lips to move with his, but she broke away again._

  
_“It’s just that,” she panted, terrified, “it’s--”_

  
_“What? SINFUL?!”_

  
_“NO!” she cried, but she no longer looked so scared and confused.  She focused on his eyes, asking questions and seeking understanding.  “I don’t KNOW.”_

  
_“Why?” he asked, pulling her closer to him.  “Because it’s good?  Because it makes us FEEL something?”_

  
_That was all she needed to hear.  All her life, Wendla had been scared that she couldn’t feel anything real.  That had been the point of asking Melchior to beat her.  And here was the chance to feel something even more real, something that felt good and right._

  
_She grabbed his neck and kissed him hard._  
  
“No,” Gemma whispered into the night.  

  
    “I’m sorry,” Melchior said, interrupting his dead tone and injecting some fervor into it.  “I’m so sorry--Gem--I didn’t know you then.”  
  
    _They both grew dizzy, and Melchior lost his sense of balance.  At least, that’s what he told himself when he pressed Wendla into the hay-covered floor, kissing her deeply (albeit a bit clumsily)._

  
_Wendla seemed to be enjoying it in some rebellious, devious way: she was directly disobeying her mother, her preacher, her teachers’ warnings.  Kissing was innocent, though.  She’d seen her parents do it before, on occasion._

  
_Melchior was getting impatient with just her lips, even though they’d only been at it for a few seconds.  He knew that he wanted more, and what his end goal was going to be.  After all, Wendla was almost underneath him, even though he was leaning over her from the side._

  
_He was going to have sex with her, and if wanted to get there, he had to go further._

  
_Melchior started by trailing kisses down her neck and taking his hands with him, letting one rest on her chest._

  
_Wendla noticed when his kisses trailed down past her collarbone, and pushed him off.  “No!”_

  
_Annoyed, he looked at her, backing his hands away from her body in surrender.  “What?”_

  
_Wendla’s eyes wandered everywhere, from her rumpled dress to his eyes to his suspended hands.  Slowly, and a little shyly, she reached for Melchior’s hand with her own small one and placed it on her breast.  Melchior’s eyes widened as she closed hers with a small smile and nervous sigh._

  
_She’d given him the go-ahead.  H_ _e immediately went to work at pulling the buttons apart on the dress.  And then there was nothing left but the thin, practically see-through fabric of the white chemise, which he untied with fumbling fingers until Wendla’s chest was there before him._

_As a sort of thank you, he went back to kissing her mouth but let his hand roam all over her body, not sure what exactly to touch or how to touch it.  He wanted it to be enjoyable for her, but he couldn’t think about anything but what he wanted at that moment: and what he wanted was to touch her breasts._

  
_Which he did, all the while kissing her.  Melchior was sure they’d only been at it for a minute by now, but his blood was racing and every second lasted forever.  Down her body he went, kissing every bare inch of skin and trailing his hands with them, until he was down THERE._   



	41. Chapter 41

“Melchior,” Gemma pleaded, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything else.  She knew what had happened next, but so much of her wanted him to deny it.  She wanted to be his first, she wanted to be the only one.  It was ridiculous how jealous she was.

  
    Even though she knew what happened even after Melchior had sex with Wendla.  At some point in the story, the girl would die, and she was frightened of that part, too--as much as she hated Wendla, she sympathized.  She was such a young girl, only 14.  She’d been going to school when she was her age, and she was probably almost as clueless then.  At least she’d known the basics of sex.

  
    Wendla had known nothing.  Hadn’t she?

  
    “Melchior,” she croaked, “did she know what she was going?  What you were doing?”

  
    Melchior shook his head.  “No.  At least, she didn’t know what it was, she just knew it was probably inappropriate, but it felt good to her.  Mostly.  And before you ask the question, it wasn’t rape.  Not to my mind.”

  
    “But she said no.”

  
    “At first.”  
  
    _He knew that this was probably going too far, but he couldn’t help himself: he felt things heat up below his waist, and he wanted to feel what was going on below hers.  She was already moaning and writhing beneath him, bewildered by the pleasure she never expected.  Her mind may not have known why she was feeling this way, but her body did, and it was responding to his.  Their skin was on fire._

  
_Melchior grabbed at the skirt of her dress and tried to push it up, but she immediately sat up and kicked away.  “No!  Wait!” she cried out in fear, pinning her black-stockinged legs together._

  
_“It’s just me,” he said in a calming voice.  His eyes begged her, reassured her: everything was going to be okay.  He wasn’t going to hurt her.  “It’s just me,” he repeated, and a small smile spread across her face._

  
_Wendla’s smile communicated volumes: trust, belief, excitement, and an endless sea of terror.  Still, she stroked his arm from shoulder to fingertip and sat, expectantly, while she opened her legs._

  
_White pantaloons.  The only thing in his way.  Melchior quickly untied them and felt the intense, electric heat, and it didn’t translate as body parts and diagrams to him.  He might have researched the female anatomy until his eyes were sore with knowledge and desire, but now everything between her legs was a mystery._

  
_A hot, delicious mystery.  Melchior touched her, caressed her, and she yelped.  “Down there? Oh--OH!”_

  
_Wendla fell back on the floor, blinking rapidly as her mouth contorted into groans of desire.  Melchior took this as a good sign and stuck his fingers inside her, loving the tight, wet, burning feeling.  He was going to lose it soon._

  
_“Oh--that feels--” Wendla couldn’t continue, closing her eyes against the wave of confusing, overwhelming pleasure.  She’d never felt anything better, or more unexpected._

  
_Melchior was losing himself with the feeling inside her.  He took his eyes off what he was doing and looked at Wendla, and he realized something that almost stopped him._

  
_Wendla hadn’t wanted to do this.  She was a child.  She didn’t know what was happening.  How could she know?  How could he do this to her?_

  
_“OH!” she cried again, caught between enjoying herself and trying to figure out what was going on._

  
_“Yes?” Melchior groaned, the only word he could utter in such a state.  This was it.  This was his chance to try and back away, if she didn’t want this._

  
_Wendla didn’t respond for a moment, but then, with a firm nod--“Yes!”  And she pulled him back on top of her to kiss him again, the only thing in this new situation she knew how to do; after all, she didn’t know to whether or not to take off clothes or how to touch Melchior._

  
_Down again he went, trailing wet kisses, until Melchior knew it was time.  Quickly and efficiently, almost in a calculating way, he took off the suspenders, pulled down his trousers, and looked Wendla in the eyes one final time before going down on her._  
  
“No more,” Gemma said.  “I understand.  You...had relations with her.”

  
    Melchior nodded.

  
    “Okay,” Gemma continued, trying to keep a clear head.  It was simple if she spelled it out: the boy she was in love was once a much younger boy, and he had a romp in the hay with a country girl.

  
    She still felt horrified, that her Melchior had taken advantage of a girl.  But she’d said yes in the end, which just made Gemma angry.  As ridiculous as it was, she was still jealous that some other girl had Melchior’s first time.  She’d never get that.  He was tainted in a way, he was no longer hers for the taking.  She suddenly felt very inexperienced and stupid compared to Wendla.  
    At the same time, she couldn’t deny that hearing the story had turned her on, just with the vivid description.  Ashamed of the heartbeat she could feel between her legs, she crossed them and asked quietly, “What did it feel like?”

  
    “Sex?  That’s hard to describe,” Melchior said pragmatically.  He tried to keep a matter-of-fact tone.  “Different.  A little confusing, and it was over pretty quickly.  It took me a bit to figure out where to...put everything, but once I got the hang of it, I... Well, it was good.  The best.  And at the end, when I...was released...I’ve never felt anything more beautiful.  Up until then.”  
    “So it’s good?  Was it good for her?”

  
    “I don’t know.  I didn’t look at her.  I only saw the way she looked when it was over.  She said she was fine, that it was all okay.  She even smiled a bit.  Gemma, I know she was scared--I know I took advantage of her.  Believe me, I know.  It haunts me every day, Gem, but trust me when I tell you I know she was all right with it, even if she didn’t know the full extent of what I was planning to do with her.”

  
    Gemma sighed.  “Okay.  I believe you.  But she didn’t know what it...making love...was for, did she?”

  
    “No, and that’s when all hell broke loose.  We stayed up in the hayloft and kissed for some time, trying to...cool off.  No one interrupted us, because nearly everyone was at church for Michaelmas.  Nearly everyone, because we weren’t the only ones who had snuck out of church--Moritz had left early and went home, where he got the gun.  So, when I should have been there for him to comfort him and talk him out of it, I was kissing the girl I’d just had sex with while he was alone in the woods, and he killed himself then.  But we’ve already gone over that.”

  
    “Yes.”

  
    Melchior hugged his knees to his chest before reaching the closing of the story.  “His funeral was so upsetting; his father was so angry and disgraced that his son had done such a thing to himself, but when everyone left, he broke down sobbing onto the grave.  I couldn’t bring myself to leave or look away, because I felt so responsible, but the sick thing was I didn’t feel truly guilty about it.  Not until later.  All I could think about was Wendla.”

  
    “Did you love her?”

  
    Melchior looked up from his curled position into Gemma’s crystalline eyes, still partially lost in memory.  “Yes.  At least, I thought I did.”

  
    She nodded, trying to contain her emotions and doing a remarkable job.  She wasn’t the first girl Melchior had ever loved--that killed her more than him sleeping with another girl.

  
    At least it had all been before he met her.  Maybe, if she’d lived in the same town, she would have been the one he’d picked first...

  
    If he saw how much her eyes were screaming in pain, he didn’t show it.  “But then everything came apart.  The school board found my essay, and I had no prayer of continuing in school with evidence like that.  They blamed me for Moritz’s death, that I’d filled his head with darkness and evil sinful fantasies.  They called it pornography.  And when they asked me if it truly was my essay, I didn’t deny it: I relished taking a stand against the administration.  I was proud of myself.

  
    “My parents weren’t.  Their perfect, educated son had gotten expelled.  They didn’t know what to do with me in the interim, so I wrote love letters to Wendla, writing about a new world and experiencing new freedoms.  She ate it up, she listened to every idea.  She even had a few of her own.  The sad thing was, I had no intention of marrying her.  I loved her, but I wanted to be able to live with her, as a sort of mate, but not be tied down by chains of marriage.  It was so normal, and expected.  I hated the idea of marriage, rejected it completely.  Even when...”

  
    “When what?  Did she ask you to marry her?”

  
    “No.  That would have been easy,” Melchior said, and then all of a sudden, he broke into shuddering tears again.  “I got Wendla pregnant.”

  
    Gemma couldn’t stop herself from crying; what with Melchior breaking down again and with this news.  She couldn’t tell if the tears were from intense empathy for the girl, or envy.  On the one hand, she felt so terrible for Wendla, and could immediately sympathize.  Wendla was a young girl, only fourteen.

  
    She could imagine when she was fourteen: gangly, scruffy, with frizzy hair and no sense of balance or hand-eye coordination.  She’d known what sex was then, but if it had happened to her, she certainly would have been terrified; she hadn’t been kissed then, either.  She could only imagine a teenage Melchior coming onto her like that, and getting her pregnant in one quick romp in a hayloft.  Her parents would have killed her.

  
    Poor girl.  Poor, poor, Wendla.

  
    But on the other hand, Wendla was insanely lucky, in her mind.  She couldn’t shake the envy that came with hearing that Melchior had loved another girl before her, had made love to that girl before making love to her, and then gotten her pregnant with his child.  Melchior’s child.

  
    It was supposed to be her job.

  
    Overcome with feelings and ever-growing sympathy for the young lovers, Gemma held a hand out to Melchior through her embarrassing tears, and he grabbed it like a lifeline.  He pulled her into a tight embrace, wrapping his arms around her, and their mixed hitched breathing provided a background for the end of the story.

  
    “Her mother was furious, practically a demon, though it was all her fault.  If she’d told Wendla anything, none of it would have happened, but she refused to believe it.  She told no one but my father, who was so--well--he convinced my mother that they’d given me too much freedom, that it was some sort of sick experiment on Wendla to test out my knowledge on sex.  They both agreed to send me to a reformatory, but I had no idea what was going on.”

  
    “A reformatory?”

  
    “It was awful.  So dark, loud, frightening--I stayed strong by keeping in corners, away from the roughhousing boys and troublemakers.  I wrote constantly, letters to Wendla, until I got one back from her.  She wrote me just once, revealing she was with child and how happy she was to bring a new baby into the world, a world we could build together.  She didn’t know the true situation of pregnancy outside of wedlock; she was taught that the stork brought babies to parents!

  
    “I escaped the reformatory and ran for miles, sending one final passionate note to her to meet me in the graveyard in Frühlingsberg at midnight.  And I was scared and ashamed as you could expect, but mostly giddy with anticipation.  I felt ready to be a father, even though I was so young.  I couldn’t wait to run away with her, even though I knew we didn’t have a chance.  We had no money, nothing to keep us afloat.  But still.”

  
    “Melchior,” asked Gemma quietly, ignoring the streams of hot tears that kept coming, “did Wendla lose the baby in childbirth?”

  
    “No.”

  
    “Oh.”  She tried to think of what else could have happened to her.  “No?”

  
    “I waited in the graveyard.  I thought she was running late, that her mother might have found her sneaking out.  I was prepared to wait or to go after her, but it was so cold and foggy outside.  I waited, and waited.  I started looking at the tombstones, saying my goodbyes to Moritz, when I noticed a new grave.”

  
    “Melchi...”

  
    “I couldn’t believe it at first.  I thought it must be a mistake.  I didn’t want to believe it," Melchior said quickly, the words pouring out of him.  “Gemma, it was hers.  They killed my Wendla.   _I_ killed her.  Her mother must have taken her to an abortion clinic, to get rid of the child quickly and save Wendla’s reputation.  Wendla couldn’t protest, she had no idea what was going on.  And it must have failed, the doctor must have done something wrong.  And Wendla must have died, bleeding out on an operating table--calling for her mother--calling for me--”

    Melchior stopped, sobbing in earnest.  Gemma catapulted herself up and out of his lap, unable to be near it.  Wendla--poor Wendla--dying, alone.  She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out; she pulled at her hair and balled her hands into fists.

  
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” he cried in anguish, repeating the words over and over.  Gemma had a feeling it wasn’t an apology to her, at all.  She went to the window in front of the couch and rested an arm against the window pane.  
    “Keep going,” she insisted.

  
    “I was going to kill myself,” he said morosely, “to get it over with.  I didn’t believe in an afterlife then, so I wasn’t hoping to join Wendla and my child, or even Moritz.  I just wanted to be over.  I didn’t deserve to live; I’d inadvertently killed three people, one of them my own child!  And then--I can’t explain it--I didn’t feel alone in the graveyard.  I don’t believe in ghosts, but I was frightened and determined to kill myself.”

  
    “Nn--!” Gemma made a noise of protest, fiercely angry that Melchior had ever even considered the thought of taking his own life.  

  
    “I didn’t feel alone, and I started to feel a surge of hope, that maybe I could learn from what I’d done, be a better man because of it--and I understand now that that was my mission, what I was supposed to do.  But it was too soon.  It was too much to take in then, so I ran away.”

  
    “And you came to America?”

  
    “No, I collapsed outside of town.  I didn’t have money or food, remember?  It was funny, a priest found me and took me in.  I spent a few months recouping in his church, and he tended to me.  Father Benedict Francis, I remember.  That was when I turned from the rebellious teenager to the sullen man I was when Fiff found me.  I spent hours in the church, mad at religion and God for doing this to me, to those I loved.  It was there that I resolved that God did exist, because there had to be a higher power to make my life so unfair.  Nature alone could not cause so much pain.  And I resented Him, I wanted to scream at Him for all He’d done.  But over time I took the blame off God and put it on myself.  I withdrew into myself and let the guilt eat me alive, and that’s when the nightmares really began.”

  
    “Nightmares.  I remember, back in December.”

  
    “I’ve had them,” he said hoarsely, “every night, every time I fall asleep.  Father left me alone, never pushing me to tell him what had happened to me.  But being alone meant having to deal with the memories.  I had terrible nightmares, so graphic and real, about them, and every night Father would wake me from them, calm in the face of my helpless screams.  I stopped getting real sleep, because I was so afraid to go to bed and face those memories.

  
    “I became hopeless.  I couldn’t kill myself, since I’d deemed it too easy, but there was nothing for me to live for.  I became sullen, and silent, brooding on my own.  The man you met last year.”

  
    “You weren’t silent.  Caustic, pessimistic, yes.  And then there was the pain in your eyes.  But maybe Fiff had done a significant job fixing you by then.”

  
    “He had.  Father Benedict was so kind to me, even though I was so disrespectful to him.  ‘I don’t believe in God,’ I’d tell him.  He’d always put his hand on my shoulder and reply, ‘It doesn’t matter, my son.  He believes in you.’  Anyway, I ran away from the church a month later and stowed away on a ship to America, wanting to be an ocean away from it all.”

  
    Gemma widened her eyes, but she didn’t turn from the window.  “You STOWED AWAY?”

  
    “I don’t recommend it,” he said with a shadow of a grin.  “Dark, and cold.  Rats everywhere, even a little water.  Not the safest boat to pick, I suppose, but it worked for me.  I always found some scraps.  I got off the ship a few weeks later and arrived here in New York, and I didn’t know a word of English.”

  
    “How did you manage?”

  
    “I almost didn’t, at first.  Eating out of garbage cans, taking scraps, begging for a stint.  I could immediately sympathize with Fiff.  I got an odd job here and there, manual labor--carrying cargo off ships, peeling potatoes.  I slept in doorways and bought books whenever I could.  Since the nightmares still came around, I spent the nights studying the characters and letters, forcing myself to learn and pick up as much English as I could.  In six months, I had enough to get by, and I got a stable job at a pub.  I was able to get my first apartment, the size of a closet, and study every night.  A year went by, and I had a decent vocabulary.  Four years later, I had an excellent one.  I was able to get a job at the Times with my work, upgrade my apartment, and keep going at the same routine I went at every day.  I sent Father Benedict a letter, thanking him for his kindness, and he sent me one back--saying he’d heard my parents had had another child in my absence--a girl, Elena.”

  
    Melchior sniffed.  “I have a sister, somewhere in Germany.  She’d be four, now.”

  
    Gemma was shocked to hear it, but she steered him back on track.  “And then you found Fiff.”

  
    “And then Fiff found _me_ ,” he corrected.  “And I was scared to be close to anyone, to let anyone be close to me.  I lived alone, I didn’t have friends, I barely talked to anyone at all.  Fiff terrified me, but he was gentle and kind enough to know what my limits were.  And before I knew it, he had wriggled his way into my heart.”

  
    “Then it was my turn.”

  
    “You were harder to be around.  Fiff was too young to really remind me of Moritz, but you were a girl my own age.  I had enormous trouble with getting used to you.”

  
    “When in the world did you fall in love with me?”

  
    Melchior shrugged.  “I always had been.  The moment we met, as cliché as it sounds--seeing your shocked, gorgeous eyes, soaked and dripping with ink: it was adorable.”

  
    “Hmmph.”

  
    “Gemma,” he said earnestly, willing her to turn around from the window and come back to him, “I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.  You were the one to really save me from myself.  Don’t be jealous of Wendla, please don’t be.  You have everything she didn’t, and you have my heart.  That’s something she never could claim as hers, even then.”


	42. Chapter 42

“I know,” Gemma whispered softly into the windowpane, closing her eyes in pain.  And she did know.  Melchior was telling the truth.  “Will they haunt you anymore?”

  
    “No,” he replied firmly.  “I’ve told you everything, so the burden’s not solely mine anymore.  They won’t change me back to the man I was, because I’m in control of myself again.  But they’ll always weigh on my mind: I’m clearly guilty for three deaths here.”

  
    “No,” she insisted, wheeling around so quickly that her dark hair whipped in the windless night.  She strode over quickly to the couch and sat on the floor in front of it, grabbing one of Melchior’s hands and kissing it.  “These things were beyond your control.  You didn’t kill Moritz, he killed himself.  And Wendla and the baby died at a doctor’s hands.”

  
    “You and I both know that might be true, but I played an active part in their deaths.”   

  
    “Perhaps,” she said, kneading his knuckles with her forefinger, “but...so did everyone.  I’m not approving of what you did, Melchi, because it was wrong.”

  
    “It _was_ wrong.  It should be repulsive to you, morally repugnant.”

  
    “Maybe, if I were an outsider or friend.  I’m the woman who loves you, Melchior, and if I can’t understand that you didn’t mean for anything bad to happen, then who can?”

  
    Melchior didn’t answer, so Gemma seized the opportunity to get out the secret she’d been keeping: “Vermont, and Boston for a few days.”

  
    That got him out of his funk, all right: “What?”

  
    “If we’re going to be telling each other everything, no more secrets, no more lies,” Gemma said impatiently, putting her hands on her hips, “then you deserve to know where I went, when I ran away.  It’s nowhere fancy--I mean, _Vermont_...”

  
    “Elaborate, please.”

  
    “I wasn’t thinking straight when I left, and you know that,” she explained.  “I could barely think about my family, or Harry, even about you.  You scared me the most, because I was so unused to this new feeling of being in love, and it frightened me.  That’s why I didn’t bring your book with me--I didn’t want a reminder.”

  
    That stung.  “Oh.”

  
    “If it makes you feel any better, I wished I’d brought _A Christmas Carol_ with me every night I was gone,” she said apologetically.  “I’m serious when I say I grabbed some of the cash I’d stowed away in my room and threw some clothes into a carpetbag.  I bought the first ticket out of here, which was Boston.  And to be honest, I don’t remember much of it...I was so depressed, and confused, and lost...I had a few drinks...”

  
    Melchior would have scolded her for letting herself get drunk in Boston, ALONE, but he had far too many things to be reprimanded for himself.

  
    “I got out of Boston, because it reminded me too much of the city.  I was going to go to Canada, but I didn’t have enough money, so I booked a train to Vermont and literally hiked my way up a mountain.”

  
    “A _mountain_?”

  
    “It was a very small mountain,” she said defensively.  “A location spot for tourists in the summer, but it was still winter, so the cabins were all empty.  I--broke into one, and just sort of lived there.”

  
    “You lived in a freezing cold cabin in _Vermont_?” Melchior summarized, not sure whether to laugh or be stern.

  
    “There was hardly any food, too.”  Gemma stuck out her tongue.  “Being hungry made me think of Fiff when I wasn’t thinking of you.  Which wasn’t often--I’d left to get away from it all and every moment I was alone, I was trapped in my thoughts of you.  Kissing you in the rain, hearing you loved me...” She blushed.  “At night, I thought of being in you apartment after we first kissed, and Fiff stopped us from--”

  
    “Yes,” he interrupted with a grin.  “I thought of that, too.”

  
    They both smiled fondly at the memory, feeling a little embarrassed even now.

  
    “So I came back,” she said, gesturing around her.  “I thought if I went out of the country, things would be better.  I actually broke into my own house to get more money, and that was the strangest thing I’ve ever done.  I had to avoid Annie and all the servants!”

  
    “So we’re up to speed?”

  
    “Yes, unless you have any secret lovers I’m not aware of.”

  
    Melchior chuckled and leaned forward, grabbing her hands and pulling her to him so she was standing right in front of him and the couch.

  
    “You aren’t answering,” she said, eyebrows furrowing in mock-suspicion.  “Is that a yes?”

  
    “No,” he said, putting his hands on her waist.  “I have no secret lovers that you aren’t aware of.”

  
    “Good.”

  
    Melchior looked up at her, really looked, and sighed contentedly.  Gemma was absolutely gorgeous--even though she was just wearing a shirt and trousers of his, he couldn’t take his eyes of her luminescent skin or long, tumbling dark hair.  Or those eyes.  He had a feeling he was never going to get used to how big and bright they were.

  
    Gemma looked like she liked what she saw, too, and ran a hand lightly through his curly hair.

   
    “Sit with me,” Melchior asked, trying not to betray how smitten he was with her.  He wanted to seem at least a little macho.

  
    Slowly, Gemma sat down on the other side of the couch, and slowly, the pair sidled up together until Gemma was sitting with her back to Melchior’s chest, and his arms were around her from behind.  “Thank you,” he said finally.  “Thank you for telling me.  And for listening.  And for not running away from me.”

  
    “How could I ever do that?”

  
    “Good question,” he conceded.  “I’m glad that you know.  I feel so much better now, like the proverbial weight is lifted from my shoulders.”

  
    Gemma spun around in his arms so they were facing each other.  “If it ever gets to be too much for you again--if the nightmares ever get too bad, or the guilt too strong, I’m going to be here and help you.  That’s what I’m signing on for.”

  
    “Sounds like you got the short end of the stick.”

  
    “Not if it means I get to love you for the rest of my life,” she whispered with a grin, and the couple suddenly realized a few things.

  
    First, the room had grown humid and hot, with all the water from the storm churning up in the air and making a thick heat that smothered the room.

  
    Second, their faces were only an inch apart.

  
    Gemma stroked a stray curl from his brow and Melchior closed his eyes into her touch.  When he opened them again, desire clouded his familiar hazel irises.

  
    There was no need for words.

  
    Melchior and Gemma crushed their lips together in a frenzy of passion, stoked by the air, the heat, and the restrained wanting they’d been holding in for nearly a year now.  Something about this night, with all the secrets laid bare, had finally set them free.  
  
    Gemma had never thought could be such an acute level of need.  She’d felt need before, the need to escape her prison-like house, the need to rescue Fiff and everyone like him from the street, the need to eat and sleep and write.

  
    She’d felt a lot of need with Melchior--needing him to look at her and smile at her, needing him to kiss her, missing him more than anything when they were apart.  There was even the fumbling, clumsy need when they’d tried to make love here.

  
     It was nothing compared to what she felt right before they kissed that night, looking into his warm, familiar eyes.  Those hazel eyes, which she’d caught in all sorts of glances: angry, proud, confused, loving--she watched as they slowly clouded with something that HAD to be lust.

  
    Gemma felt it then: a deep, smoldering, rumbling need that pounded in her ears and chest.  She felt everything move in slow motion, and she closed her eyes and held her breath in anticipation.

  
    As soon as their lips connected, everything moved quickly again.  She moaned against the crushing passion of the kiss at how much she just WANTED him.  Their lips were dancing, moving hard across each other like they never had before, and she felt every little thing they did: the way Melchior tilted his head, the way his bottom lip tugged at hers, the way she felt a fire burning within her.

  
    Melchior might have been passionate, but he was still too reserved and respectful.  Gemma pushed herself into his lap, forcing their bodies to be together, and pressed her tongue to his lip.

  
    He responded with a little yelp of surprise, which would have made Gemma roll her eyes were it not for the fervor with which he responded.  He opened up his mouth and claimed hers, letting their tongues battle for dominance while his hands pulled her tight against his chest.

  
    Gemma gasped in shock at being so close to Melchior: everything was so hot, and she could feel something hard pressing deeply, almost painfully, against the inside of her leg.  “Melchi--” she breathed against his lips, “is that--?”

  
    Melchior didn’t respond; groaning, he thrust up against Gemma, making her cry out in surprise.  He opened his eyes and tore his lips away from her, and with one sweeping move, he pulled Gemma into his arms and carried her to the bed.

  
    _This is it_ , she thought happily.   _It’s happening now--the heat--the rain around us--oh, Melchior--_

  
    Melchior placed her on top of the bed and tore the sheets away, positioning himself right above her and looking at her intently.  Gemma looked up with an expectant look on her face, crossing her arms in mock-waiting.

  
    He laughed and seized her lips with his, moaning as soon as they began kissing.  Up and around went her arms, locking around his neck and pulling her close to him.  Melchior kissed her until he could feel his lips burn with the intensity of the contact, opening his mouth to let his tongue have another chance.  She tasted too sweet, too real--he needed more of her.

  
    He slowly moved away from her mouth and kissed a slow trail down her jawline to the end of her jawbone.  Nibbling on it, he found the courage to unbutton the front of her shirt.

  
    Once he started nervously pulling buttons apart, he couldn’t stop, especially with Gemma responding so well; she gasped again at the excellent idea and grabbed his shoulders to get better access to his neck while he tore the white fabric away, and similarly slipped off her trousers.

  
    Gemma got impatient herself and pulled his shirt away from his shoulders, running her hands up and down his arms and claiming his mouth with hers again.  Like she had before so many months ago, she threw him down on the bed, this time straddling him, and kissed her way down from his lips to his collarbone.

  
    “Gem--” he warned in a husky tone, thrusting hard again.  She pinned his arms down and continued to kiss down his chest, tracing her fingers over his bare stomach and even licking him.  She felt so wrong.  She felt so _right_.  She could feel the hardness underneath her, almost hurting with its size and heat, and Melchior flipped her over again, pulling the chemise and pantaloons off in seconds.  Gemma didn’t even know they were gone, didn’t even care.

  
    “Wow.” He pulled away from her, eyes roaming all over her body, filled with such love and admiration she thought she would scream.  Gemma hadn’t realized she was completely naked, and she came back down to earth a little, crossing her legs and blushing furiously.  

  
    Melchior kissed down the column of her throat and then her breasts, which made her cry out in pleasure--it couldn’t feel this good, could it??  He kissed and licked and sucked on each one, and then he continued down to her stomach and navel, stopping before he got any closer.  She felt that painful need again and wrapped her naked legs around his waist.

  
    “Melchi, _please_!” she begged as he came back up to meet her face.  “I can’t wait anymore!”

  
    “Are you sure?” he asked.  “Are you ready for this?”

  
    “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life--I’ll die if you don’t--Melchior, please--”

  
    She felt the fabric slip away from his waist and the warmth of his middle, and she untangled her legs from his waist.

  
    Then she felt it--something hard, something burning, right before her entrance.  Melchior gasped once, in pleasure and pain, and she knew he was thinking about Wendla for that one second--

  
    She leaned forward and kissed him once.  “It’s just me, remember?  It’s me.  It’s Gemma.  Melchior.  Melchior, _please_ \--”

  
    The sensation that she was being crushed by him, that every part of her was covered with a part of him, came over her, and Melchior pulled their bodies closer together.  “I love you, Gemma Keeper.”

  
    He managed to say it in such a clear tone, despite its deepness and huskiness.  Gemma felt the love, fear, nervousness, excitement, and that returning need swell up in that moment, and she eagerly pressed herself to Melchior.  Every inch was touching.  It was about to happen.  She managed to breathe out, “I love you, too, Melchior Gabor.”

  
    And then, Melchior slowly pushed himself inside her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
Warmth.

  
    It was all she could feel, and it wasn’t like the intense, piercing heat of making love the first time: it pooled in her joints and limbs, making her feel like she was suspended and safe.  Melchior’s arms were wrapped tight around her waist, holding her close to his chest and beating heart.  She didn’t want to open her eyes; she wanted to relish the feeling of not knowing but feeling everything.  Foreheads pressed together, slow and still somewhat labored breathing, and no end to the warmth that covered her body in waves.

  
    At some point, she stopped feeling so much and started letting her mind wander, lingering on the memories of what it had felt like.  She was a little disconcerted when she remembered how sore she was, because it had been a tight, perfect squeeze.  Still, the indescribable rapture, the joy of it all...she’d never dreamed how wonderful it would be.

  
    And she’d tried to, goodness knows she’d tried to before tonight.

  
    She flickered her eyes open and let them adjust to the darkness.  Heat still hung around from the end of the storm, giving the air a slow, liquid quality.  The apartment was as messy as always, with paper and books making the floor hard to navigate.  The sheets weren’t on the floor anymore; Melchior must have pulled them back onto the bed when they’d finished.  What an utterly logical thing to do.

  
    And his arms were around her—wrapped firmly around her waist and keeping her pressed close to him, like he had no intention of letting go.  Gemma smiled sleepily and burrowed gently closer to his chest.  It was so comforting, so safe, the way his arms held her and his hands were placed on her bare back.  Everything added to the sheer warmth of it all.

  
    The dull soreness between her legs persisted a little more, and she shifted her hips away to try and alleviate it.  In his sleep, Melchior frowned and tightened his arms around her, dragging her back to him.  Gemma chuckled back into his embrace, lifting an arm to push back some sweaty curls stuck to his forehead, when she noticed the window.

It had to be early in the morning, but the sun hadn’t come out yet.  Night seemed to be enjoying its last hour before it had to withdraw its sleepy blackness, and it made Gemma feel wistful to see it go.  The night had seemed to go on forever with learning all of Melchior’s secrets, and it had also been their first time—but now this eventful night was disappearing and slipping from their fingertips.

Careful not to wake him, Gemma dislodged herself from Melchior’s hold and stood up by the side of the bed.  He grumbled in his sleep and grasped at the air in the space she’d been, but she didn’t notice.  The night was leaving, and in some strange way, she wanted to watch.

It was probably around 3 in the morning, maybe a little earlier--she could only see brief shadows walking on the wet streets, and the city around her looked deserted.  Lamplight bathed the sidewalks below in warm color while the last blue clouds of evening hung above it.  Gemma grabbed her chemise, which she found in a rumpled pile on the floor, and slipped it over her head to lean out the window.

    Watching the stars for a few minutes, Gemma thought of Wendla and Moritz.  She wished she could talk to them, ask them questions, apologize--and thinking of apologizing made her remember Fiff.  
  
    It felt stupid, but she began to speak.

  
    “Hello.”  She sounded stiff, formal, awkward--talking to people who weren’t there.  “I don’t know if you can hear me...I mean, I suppose it’s a question of beliefs, and I don’t really know what I believe.  I guess I want you to be able to hear.  So...”

  
    She swallowed.  It felt so ridiculous.  Did she really feel the need to do this?

  
    _Yes_ , she thought sadly.   _The thing is, I really do_.

  
    “Moritz,” she addressed the night, “Well, to start off, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that you--well, I’m sorry about everything that happened to you, especially since the same thing almost happened to me.  We were both trapped in our heads, and we both depended on Melchior to get us out of it.  But I was the one who lived in the end, and I’m sorry that you suffered so much.  I hope you’re at peace, wherever you are.  I think we could have been friends...”

  
    It sounded unintelligent and childlike, apologizing to thin air.  Meaningless.  But it held meaning to her.

  
    “Wendla,” she continued, “I am also sorry.  I can’t even imagine what you must have felt about everything, with the hayloft to getting pregnant...how you died.  But I can imagine how you felt about Melchior, and I was insanely jealous of you when I first heard his story.  You had everything I wanted, even though I won it all in the end.  You got to be Melchi’s first love, first kiss, first time, first child...  And I hated you for it, even though you died.  But you were a poor little girl with not a single clue, and in a way, he was too.  And I might get the rest of Melchior’s love, and kisses, and desire, and children, but I don’t think I’ll ever be at ease with you.

  
    “All the same, I am so sorry.  I hope wherever you are, that you’ve found peace too.  The end of your life was so painful and messy...Wendla, I can close my eyes and see it all, like he can.”  Gemma closed her eyes as she said this and grimaced.  “I can see the dark operating table, and I can see you, too.  After all, I’d known who you are since I fell in love with him.  Your picture, he drew you.  I’m afraid I’m going to see a book now with your name in the margins, but it’s something I have to deal with.  I can see your beautiful face and you running through a field, and I can understand, though I will never understand why you had to die an innocent.  But if you hadn’t, Melchior never would have moved to America, and the depression would have killed me... So, you see, I don’t know whether to be grateful in some strange way or not.  Wendla--”

  
    She cut herself off.  Now she just sounded cruel.  She didn’t mean to, she just wanted to talk...let it out...

  
    “Wendla,” she repeated, “forgive him.  And forgive me.  And please, now that it’s all over, help him to let it go, or he’ll never be able to love me.  In fact, Moritz, too--if you two can hear me, let him not feel such pain when he thinks of you.  Help him let go.  Please.  And thank you for...making him the man he is today.  I promise to take care of him, for your sake, and for ours.  And once again, I’m sorry for everything that happened that spring.”

  
    She was going to walk away from the window then when she realized she was forgetting the most important person.  “Fiff,” she whispered.  “I may not know whether or not they can hear, but I know you can.  I know you’re listening.  You’re probably gagging up in heaven from watching Melchior and I--well...”  She blushed.  “I miss you so much.  Every day you’re gone, we think of you, and we are so sorry.  I am sorry the most, because if I’d never run away, you never would have come after me, and you wouldn’t have been...killed.  But I hope you’re happy and safe, wherever you are, and that you can always watch over us like you used to here on earth.  I love you, Fiff.  I’ll see you again, one day.”

  
    “Who are you talking to?” Melchior called drowsily, sitting up from the bed with his curly hair a mess.

  
    She grinned.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  
    “You didn’t--I just realized you weren’t with me, and I woke up.  I worried--” he shook his head. “Get back over here.  I’m not done with you.”

  
    Giggling like a schoolgirl, she abandoned her counsel of ghosts and scrambled to Melchior in bed.  “Not done with me?” she gasped as he draped long, languorous kisses across her collarbone.  “Then by all means, continue!”


	43. Chapter 43

For the first time in his life, Melchior Gabor had nothing to say.  

  
    Everything he could possibly say was already communicated by the late afternoon sun on the backs of his arms, the bustle of the city moving once again outside, and the contented smile he wore on his face.

  
    Flickering his eyes open, he looked down at Gemma, sound asleep and snug in his arms.  She had been perfect.  She _was_ perfect.  Last night had been so beyond perfect that he was left without wanting to say a single thing.

  
    Melchior gingerly pulled a messy strand of hair from her face and willed her to wake up and enjoy the moment with him.

  
    She read his mind and fluttered her eyelids, blinking rapidly at the harsh summer sun that flooded the room.  “How long was I asleep?”

  
    “Not much longer than me.  It’s around four.”

  
    “We slept all day?” she chuckled, burrowing closer into his chest.  “We must have broken some sort of record.”

  
    “Darling,” he said softly into her hair, “I think we broke _every_ record!”

  
    “Yes, we did.  How many times did we go at it?” she asked as she propped her head up on her hand.  “Three?”

  
    “I told you, we broke every record.”

  
    Gemma grinned and kissed his neck, trying to mimic what he’d done to her own neck last night.    
    “You know,” he breathed as she continued, “that’s the first night that I’ve been able to sleep, and not have a single nightmare.  You’re a miracle.”

  
    She smiled into his neck at this success and kept kissing him.

  
    “Gemma--Gem!” he laughed, gently pushing her off.  “You’ve got to stop, I don’t think I have enough energy for four times in one 24-hour period!”

  
    She laughed too.  This was so easy, this flirty banter--lying in Melchior’s bed, covered in his sheets and arms, naked and perfect.  She could spend all her life exactly where she was, and her parents could rail at her all they wanted.

  
    Her parents.

  
    “Oh, NO!” she cried, dramatically diving under the sheets.  “What did we DO?”

  
    “What?  What’s wrong?” Melchior asked, panicked.  

  
    “Melchior--my parents don’t know where I am, and I’ve been out all day!  Oh, they’ll be worried--and now I’m embarrassed.”

  
    Melchior rolled his eyes.  “Do you really care that your parents don’t know?”

  
    “Well, it’s something to think about.  And I’m--well, you took my virtue, and I’m an unmarried woman!  I never thought I’d do something this loose--I mean, three times!  Three times, Melchior!”  Gemma burst out of the bed, gasping at her naked self, and pulled her fingers nervously through her messy hair.

  
    He flopped back onto the pillows.  “You’re really worried about being an unmarried woman who’s had sex?  I honestly don’t think it matters if the man you want to marry is the one you had sex with.  It’s not like I’m going to reject you now.  As if I could reject you after last night...”  
    She blushed.  “You’re right, I’m sorry.  None of what I said...matters.  It’s just a value that’s been pounded into my head, I can’t help but feel like I broke the rules.”

  
    “You’re right,” he said seriously.  “You’re absolutely right.”

  
    Gemma dropped the nervous smile.  “What?”

  
    Melchior crossed his arms from the bed and stared her down.  “You’ve had your virginity taken in some poor writer’s apartment without your parents even knowing you were gone.  You’re a loose woman.”  He sighed deeply.  “I suppose I have to marry you now.”

  
    Her face grew red with rage.  “ ‘Have to’?”  she growled.  Diving back into the bed, she slapped Melchior’s arm.  “How dare you?  You took something very personal and important to me--and now you’re reluctantly agreeing to marry me?  Melchior, that’s so cruel of you, I can’t even begin to--”

  
    “Gemma.”

  
    “--and I thought you loved me!  You shouldn’t ‘have to’ marry me, you should want to!”

  
    “Gem.”

  
    “Melchior, how could you do this to me?”

  
    “Gem, look at your hand.”

  
    She stopped mid-rant, and her grey eyes popping out in surprise mixed with her messy dark hair made her really look like an owl.  Melchior had to stifle a laugh.  “My hand?”

  
    “Yes, Gem, your left hand.”

  
    She snatched the hand in question up and started to hyperventilate.  “M-M-Mel-Melchi?”

  
    He checked his nails.  “How could I do this to you, indeed.”

  
    Gemma screamed and stood up from the bed again, stumbling back and tripping over her feet until she bumped into the desk.  “W-what is this?” she asked, wildly waving her left hand at Melchior.

  
    “Well, it’s a hand,” Melchior said, rolling his eyes.  Gemma looked panicked, terrified.  Her eyes still popped out of her head and she froze in place, holding out her left hand for his inspection.  Getting up slowly (and doing his best to ignore the fact that he was not wearing pants), he tenderly took her hand in his.  “Those are five fingers,” he laughed, counting each one.  “And this is an absurdly small engagement ring compared to the one that you really deserve.”

  
    Gemma was flabbergasted; she moved her mouth but no coherent things came out.  “H-how-wh-w-when did you--”

  
    “Put it on your finger?  Probably somewhere between time number two and three.  I don’t know if you know this, but you sleep like the dead.”

  
    “N-nn-no, when did you--how did you--get this??”

  
    “Half a year ago,” he explained.  “In case you were wondering, I’m not reluctantly proposing marriage: I was going to buy this in February, when I made up my mind to go find you.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money to go on the trip and purchase a ring, so I had to wait until I found you.  I got this back in March or April, after you were back and I finally had enough.  It’s rather small,” he said apologetically, tapping the practically nonexistent diamond, “but it’s a proper ring with a real rock in there, and it’ll do until I get something better.”

  
    “Y-you-Melchior--you call this a proper proposal???”

  
    “No, it’s actually a terrible one.  Let me try again, with lots of emotional clichés,” he said solemnly.  “Gemma Katherine Keeper, before we met, I was a wreck headed straight for disaster.  I was a prisoner of my guilt and without intervention, I was going to die.  And then you appeared in those ridiculous baggy street clothes, covered in inky water and paper, and I’d never seen anything more beautiful or helpless or delicate in my life.  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get you out of my life, and now I never want you out of it.  I’m sorry it took so long for me to realize how much I love you, Gemma.  You’re my perfect match in everything, and I know I might not be some millionaire from 5th Avenue, and I’m not the ideal handsome prince.  I tend to be cold and sarcastic and superior.  But I will change it all for you, because I need you...forever.”

  
    Swallowing, he got down on one knee.  “Gemma, I love you.  I am going to spend the rest of my life with you, starting today, if you do me the honor of saying you’ll marry me.”

  
    Gemma’s eyes were still wide open in shock.  Melchior was on one knee in front of her, holding her hand, pleading with his eyes.  It was what she needed.  It was what she wanted, what she’d been dreaming of and looking forward to.  Why, now, was she speechless?

  
    “Um...” She blinked a few times and coughed.  “What am I supposed to say?  I don’t have a speech prepared, nothing romantic.  I’m not even wearing clothes, for goodness’ sake!”

  
    “Just say yes,” he begged.  It was the most logical thing in the world.  “Please.”

  
    “Yes.”  She raised an eyebrow.  “Yes.  Of course, I’ll marry you.”  She paused awkwardly before the realization dawned on her.  “Did you just ask me to marry you?”

  
    “Did you just agree to?”

  
    “I think I did.  I did!” A slow smile broke across her face until she erupted into a frenzy.  “Melchi, you just asked me to marry you!  You just proposed!  You just did!  And I agreed!  MELCHIOR!”

  
    Gemma exploded, jumping up and down and all around and all over Melchior.  “I’m your fiancée!  We’re getting married!  Finally!  I--I--I can’t believe it!  THIS IS WONDERFUL!”

  
    “Yes, it is,” he said, unfazed.  “Can we kiss now?”

  
    “Can we KISS now?  Oh, Melchi--” she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him with every bit of energy she had.  “Let’s put on clothes!  Oh, gosh!  What-what--what do we do now?  Are you up for having sex a fourth time?”

  
    “Almost.  You need to go home and check in with your parents.”

  
    “I can’t do that, I’m too--HAPPY!  Melchior, I don’t want to wait!  I want our lives to start right now, let’s get married today!”

  
    “That’s entirely unreasonable.”

  
    “No, it’s not!” she cried, throwing on her clothes.  “Let’s get married tonight, tonight!  And we can get out of here, we can travel!  We can see the entire world and learn everything!  And then--and then we’ll come back, we’ll come back smarter and better, and we can change the world!  With everything we know and everything we’ve learned and felt, there’s so much we can CHANGE!”

  
    “Gemma, we can’t invite people to a wedding in a few hours.  I don’t have enough money to organize a white wedding right now.  That’s why it’s an engagement.”

  
    “Melchi, I don’t want a white wedding!  I just want you, now.  You don’t want a huge wedding, anyway, do you?  You just want a small ceremony, just the two of us?”

  
    “You deserve a huge wedding, one with all of Manhattan invited.”

  
    “Melchior Gabor,” she said, getting down on her knee in a mirror image of what he’d just done.  “You just proposed a huge life change to me, and I accepted.  Now it’s your turn to accept my proposal.  My proposal is that we say goodbye to New York and elope--tonight--and start our life together now.  I propose that we go see the world together.  Melchi, this is what I want for us, and I want it now, and I’m going to keep wanting it even after we leave.”

  
    “Gemma,” he sighed, trying to collect his reasoning.  “I--I want to do everything you asked, and you know I’d do it--but how are you supposed to leave everything behind?  They’ll think I kidnapped you again.”

  
    “I’ll write a letter and leave it in my room.  We can tell Harry that we’re leaving, and Howard.  They won’t tell anyone until it’s too late to stop us.  And I’m a legal adult anyway, I can make my own decisions.  It’s time for us to take control of our lives.  Please, Melchi, this is my proposal to you.  Accept it.”

  
    Melchior groaned.

  
    “Melchior, please, let’s go tonight.  Marry me tonight, and then we’ll go and see the world, and one day we’ll come back.  Don’t think about them, or anyone--for once in your life, stop being so damn logical and feel what you want to do.  It’s just the two of us.”

  
    He blew air through his teeth.  “Tonight?”

  
    “Yes.  I can go to my house and grab my things now.”

  
    “No!” he said, pushing hair out of his eyes.  Reasoning was useless, because it wouldn’t work.  She’d spent her entire life doing what was expected, and this was his chance to let her make her own decisions.  And it was what he wanted anyway.  “Gemma...” he began with a growing grin, “You aren’t going to your house now.  You’re going to come back to bed with me and we’re going to attempt making love for a fourth time today.”

  
    “That’s all you can think about?”

  
    “Well, if we’re running away to get married, we can’t spend the night here.  Your parents might send people to look for us or dissuade us.”

  
    Her face lit up.

  
    “So we’re going to have to catch a ship as soon as we’re married,” he continued, “the first ship to leave the harbor.  And we won’t have time to spend our wedding night together that way, so we might as well spend a wedding...morning.  So, what do you think--”

  
    Gemma threw the chemise over her head and scrambled across the room.  Diving right back into the sheets, she laughed.  “I’m waiting.”

  
    Just like that, Melchior was aroused and ready to go.  He reached to pull off his clothes, but finding that he wasn’t wearing any, he stayed rooted to the spot in confusion.

  
    “You can keep standing there if you like,” Gemma joked, stretching out on the bed.  “I really appreciate the view.”

  
    “It’s better up close,” he said, joining her on the bed, “and personal.”


	44. Chapter 44

     _You are damn lucky you have me for a sister, Gemma Katherine_.

  
    It was improper to swear or curse if you were a lady of a well-to-do family.  Swearing was reserved for the lower class women of factories and shipyards.  Still, she supposed due to her temperament, Marny Keeper cursed like a sailor inside her head. 

  
    She’d been going on social calls with her friends from Cliffwood when she arrived home yesterday afternoon to find Harry Madison, back from his months in Paris, staring contentedly out of their foyer window.

  
    Marny wasn’t stupid, nor was she uncaring: she’d willingly gone to look for her sister even when she should have been out on the town, looking for a match.  She’d done it because she _cared_ about her flighty, quiet, unpredictable sister.  She wanted her to be safe.

  
    She’d also put up with copious amounts of her praising her...suitor, Melchior Gabor, and she hadn’t said a word about his station or background.  Marny had also noticed when, a few weeks ago, Gemma stopped talking about him and going out as much.  Still a free bird in the house (their parents had granted her freedom to leave as she pleased since she came back), Gemma went out and explored her city for real, but she never did it with Melchior anymore.  

Harry explained yesterday that she’d gone to see him, and Marny knew immediately that Gemma wouldn’t be back that night.  Luckily for Gemma, the sister she’d never quite felt at ease with came through for her and procured two tickets to the opera for their parents, and they’d missed the majority of the night.  Marny had been the one to wait up for Gemma all night, terrified her parents would return and see that she was spending the night at Melchior’s.  That’s something they wouldn’t stand for.  

Luckily for both of them, they’d come home so late that they went straight to bed, and she was able to tell them in the morning that Gemma had left early.

 _You’re pretty damn lucky_ , she thought, waiting in the foyer for Gemma to come back during the afternoon.   _I hope you have an explanation for Mother and Father, because I sure as hell don’t._

_Speak of the devil._

Out of the foyer window, she could see Gemma practically skipping down the 5th Avenue, sunlight bouncing off her creamy dress and curling hair, which was let loose in the wind.

And right behind her, holding her hand--Melchior Gabor, laughing with her.  They certainly looked like they’d been up to no good; Marny prayed that they were sweaty and red-cheeked because they’d been running home.

Gemma threw her head back and laughed, shooing him away from her side so she could open the gate alone.  He kissed her cheek and winked before she dragged herself through the gate, constantly turning back to look at him and laugh.

They looked so happy.  And sickeningly affectionate.

“Hellooooo?” Gemma trilled, quietly opening the front door.  “Who’s home?”

“Please, please, PLEASE tell me you didn’t do anything Mother and Father wouldn’t like,” Marny hissed, crossing her arms.

Gemma ran up the stairs, not stopping for anything.  “Did you cover for me?”

“Yes--I sent them to the opera, my friend got me tickets--don’t ask me how, but--”

“Marny,” she said breathlessly, wheeling around, “thank you.  Thank you for everything, thank you for covering for me last night, thank you for going to look for me, thank you for being an excellent sister.  I don’t tell you this enough, but I love you!”  
    “I--Gemma--thank you?” Marny hadn’t been expecting that.  “I love you, t--GEMMA!  What are you UP TO?”

Gemma giggled up the stairs and tumbled into her room.  “I just thought you should know.  It’s something I want you to hear.”

    “Gemma, you can’t keep giving our parents these heart attacks!”

  
    “I don’t plan on doing it for much longer,” she said with another ridiculous laugh.  “I won’t be a problem anymore, I promise.  Now I’m going to change--I’m going out tonight!”

  
    Marny spluttered.  “Again!  They already think you were out last night and all day today!  They can’t agree to this!”

  
    “They’ll have to, Marny--I’ve made a breakthrough!” Gemma kissed Marny on the forehead and then slammed the door to her bedroom in her face.  
  
    This was it.  She was finally leaving.  What to pack?

  
    Gemma tore through every book and corner she’d ever hid money in, even breaking a few floorboards behind her dresser.  All the money she’d ever hidden away from a birthday card or article, all the money she hadn’t given to Annie when she’d been laid off--she pulled it up and tried to organize it.  

  
    Tying all the cash in a handkerchief, Gemma grabbed all of her favorite books and notebooks, but she couldn’t think of what to bring.  They’d be leaving for Europe, just to explore and see the world---notebooks for sure, to write, and money.  What else could she possibly need?

  
    Clothes.

  
    She took three of her most reasonable dresses and stuffed them into a carpetbag, ones that she could move around in.  She picked one spectacular evening gown in case; she could sell it later if she had to.  Extra tights and chemises, and a few pairs of secret trousers she’d kept from her journalist days.

  
    That was it.  That was all she needed.

  
    Gemma was about to grab her coat and hat and head out of the door, closing it for forever, perhaps--when her closet caught her eye.

  
    Setting down her carpetbag, she walked slowly over to her closet and held the ornate handle in her hand for a long time, savoring the familiar feel of the burnished metal before throwing open the closet door.

  
    An array of gowns lay before her, some ridiculous and poofy while others no-nonsense and straight-laced.

  
    Gemma Keeper had no idea what to wear to her own wedding: no one was going to be invited, so she didn’t need to dress to impress.  Melchior wouldn’t mind if she was in trousers and a shirt.  Still, she wanted to look right for an occasion that seemed so improper and spontaneous.  Melchior was getting the priest and everything else, but a dress was something she wanted to contribute.

  
    She was eloping, yes, but couldn’t she still look like a princess?

  
    A terrifying white puff for a skirt was not an option, and her coming-out party gown was not part of her closet.  Gemma eyed all the fabrics and fingered the edge of the one she had in mind: it was pure white satin, shiny and basic, and very modest and well-cut.  The skirt wasn’t too big and the sleeves weren’t too puffy, and a small line of pearl buttons went down the back while the high neckline gave the impression of a young virgin queen.

  
    It had been a tea dress, and while she’d admired it at first, she’d pretty much refused to wear it in a show of rebellion toward her new dresses.  She wanted to wear what she would pick out, and she’d picked out several reasonable gowns that were functional.

  
    Still, it was a gorgeous dress, expensive, one he’d never seen, and white.  It would work, and she _wanted_ it to work.

  
    Gemma carefully put the dress on and pinned back sections of her hair.  There was no time to pin it all up or curl it all, so she pulled it back and added a few white starburts, lamenting the fact that she didn’t have a veil.

  
    This wasn’t a huge wedding, but she really did want it to be special, even if it was only the two of them.  Ignoring her mirror, she gave the room a farewell nod and flew down the stairs to look for her parents.

  
    When she saw them, she felt frozen.

  
    It all felt very real, now--she was leaving forever.  Sitting there in the armchair was her father, twirling his blond mustache and flipping through the newspaper.  She could remember every smile he’d ever given her, eyes twinkling, and every kind word and storybook he’d offered.  Her mother was playing the piano, concentrating on the keys, and she could see all the pain her mother had ever caused her, as well as the protection she’d provided and love she’d felt for her youngest daughter.

  
    Gemma ran forward to embrace them both.

  
    “Gemkat!” John Keeper said amiably, trying to put down his newspaper with Gemma’s arms wrapped firmly around him.  “When did you get home, dearest?  You’ve been out all day.”

  
    “Yes.  I’m going back out--I have some business to attend to tonight, and then everything should be fine.”

  
    “What should be fine?” Wilhelmina called from the piano.

  
    “Everything.”  Gemma pressed a kiss to her father’s forehead.  “I’d like to say, though, that I’m sorry for everything.  I know I made things difficult for you.  That’s an understatement, actually--I’ve been a terrible daughter.  I was ungrateful, I ran away from home, nearly disgraced us, made you go searching for me--and still, you put up with my when I came home, with Melchior around and with me dealing with Fiff’s death.  You still put up with me, even though I insist on doing things my way from now on.  I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you.  I hope you can forgive me.”

  
    “Darling, we do forgive you.  All of that’s in the past now,” John said fondly.

  
    “Thank you, then.  I love you both.”

  
    “What’s gotten into your head, ol’ Gem?” her father asked, holding her softly by the shoulders.  “You look terrified.”

  
    “I just...felt bad about what I’ve done.  I wanted you to know.”  Gemma stood up and walked over to her mother, still quietly playing the piano.

  
    And then she saw that her mother, the iron fist that had ruled over her entire life, was crying.  Silent tears plopped on the ivory keys, and Gemma had about had it with crying.

  
    Wilhelmina hit a wrong note and stopped playing.  “Everything I did, I did because I thought it was best for you.”  She looked up at her daughter’s face, pleading with tear-filled eyes.  “You know that?  You see, it was the path every daughter followed... How could I have known what you were dreaming?”

  
    “You could have asked,” Gemma said seriously.  “But it wasn’t expected of you to ask.  Maybe one day, parents will.”

  
    “I love you, Gemma,” she said quietly.  “You didn’t hear that enough, I think.  You’ll remember that, when you go?”

  
    Gemma froze in place.  Her mother knew.

  
    She knew she was leaving forever.

  
    “Mother, I’m just going out for a few hours.  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  
    She laughed a little bitterly.  “You’re a terrible liar.  You get that from your father.  I can guess what you’re doing, my daughter--I should know you better than anyone.”

  
    Gemma lowered her voice.  “I’m not leaving.”

  
    “Yes, you are--you’re running away this very night.  Don’t think I didn’t notice the ring on your finger, you forgot to take it off before you walked in the door.  You’re getting married, and I wish I could stop you.”

  
    “Mother, that isn’t true,” Gemma halfheartedly attempted, trying to keep from breaking down into blubbery tears.  She sunk down to the piano bench with her mother and hugged her for the first real time in her life.  “I love you.”

  
    “Make sure he keeps you safe,” Wilhelmina said into her daughter’s hair.  “I can’t stop you, and we’ve never been on good terms, you and I--but maybe I can earn your forgiveness by letting you go.  I won’t tell anyone, I’ll make up the excuses--and I really don’t think we’re going to see each other again.  But write, if you can.”

  
    “Writing’s the one thing I’ve ever been good at.”

  
    Wilhelmina sniffed and pulled away, stroking her daughter’s cheek.  “So beautiful.  I love you, Gemma.”

  
    Gemma persisted weakly.  “I’ll see you for dinner.”

  
    “Goodbye.”

  
    “What’s going on?” John called from the armchair.  “Gemma?  Making your mother cry?  No small feat--what are you ladies gossiping about?”

  
    “Nothing,” Gemma said, wiping any stray tears from her eyes.  “Tell Jacky I said goodbye, I’ll be back later.”  
  
    “Are you ready?” Melchior asked anxiously as his fiancée closed the gate to her magnificent estate.  Gemma sighed deeply before letting go of the iron hinges, wanting desperately to cling to them and never let go.  She wasn’t going to see them ever again--if she did happen to get the chance, it would no longer be her house.

  
    “I’m ready,” she said, pulling her coat tight around her despite the June heat.  “It was a little emotional in there, Wilhelmina knew I was leaving for good.”

  
    “She didn’t try to stop you?” Melchior asked, surprised.  He took her carpetbag in his hand and walked down 5th Avenue as she kept talking.

  
    “No, she let me go.  I don’t think I’m ever going to see her again.  Father, too--they’re getting old, now.  He’s in his fifties, she’s nearly forty.”

  
    “They still have a lot of time to live.”

  
    “But we won’t be with them.”

  
    “Gemma, I don’t know if I can do this,” Melchior said firmly, dropping the carpetbags.  “I’m tearing you away from your family.”

  
    “How close was I to my family?” she said, rolling her eyes.  “I’ll miss them, but you miss your parents, don’t you?”

  
    “Every day, but--”

  
    “Melchior Gabor,” Gemma said, facing him square on the sidewalk, “I am going to pick up those carpetbags and we are going to go to the priest you found and THEN we are going to get married, and THEN we are going to see the world.  I’ve brought all my money and anything worth something, so we can float for a while if we’re careful.  We’re going to be with each other, no matter where we are and where we end up, for the rest of our lives.  And that starts now.”

  
    Melchior grumbled and picked up the bags himself.  “Are you sure you don’t want to invite your family, or wait a few weeks--years--let me save enough money for a proper wedding?”

  
    “With all those people to watch?  Yikes.  I’d make a fool of myself.”

  
    “No, you wouldn’t.”

  
    “Yes, I would.  Come on, let’s find a chapel!  I’m starting to think that you don’t want to get married.”

  
    Melchior blew air through his teeth.  “You know I do.  I do.  In fact, that’s what I’m going to say at the altar--I do.  See how prepared I am, saying it early?”

  
    “My husband, the joker.”

  
    “Your fiancé and husband-to-be,” he corrected.  “Actually, we need to pay Howard a goodbye visit, first, and then off to wedded bliss.  And here--” He rummaged very carefully through his bag.  “I can’t give you the white wedding you deserve, but at least you can use this.”

  
    Gemma’s jaw dropped in shock as she accepted the small bundle he handed her.  “A bouquet?  But--how--?”

  
    “It’s not very big,”  he said, pulling back some of the paper to let Gemma peer at the white lilies and baby’s breath.  “Still, you should have something to carry down the aisle.”  
  
    “You two sound like every single pair of infatuated teenage lovers since the dawn of time,” Howard grumbled in his armchair, puffing grey plumes of smoke into the air.  “So why do I find you so damn adorable?”

  
    Melchior and Gemma, who had been bracing themselves for his wrath by holding hands, burst out into laughter.

  
    “I’m quite serious, Gabor...s.  Gabors?” he checked with Melchior for clarification.

  
    “Nope, she’s still a Keeper--for an hour or so, at least,” the boy explained, seating his fiancée on his usual seat in the leather chair facing Howard.

  
    “Well, Gabor and future-Gabor, my two best writers sent an urgent telegram to me an hour ago explaining that they were eloping that very night and leaving the country to see the world, and I suppose you’re very scared that I’m going to make a scene.”  Howard smiled and put out the cigar.  “What is it about you two that is making me so strangely calm in the face of this youthful immaturity?”

  
    Melchior shrugged.  “My rugged good looks?”

  
    “Shut it, Gabor.”

  
    Gemma stifled a giggle.  “It’s quite possible, Mr. Howard.”

  
    Howard sighed deeply.  “Stay out of this, Keeper.  You might find him devastatingly attractive, but that’s just you, my dear.  Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

  
    “Howard,” Melchior complained, “that is exactly what we’ve been grappling with here.  We don’t need you pressing the issue, of else I’ll be persuaded to call the whole thing off.”

  
    “But maybe that’s best--have you the money for this?  Are you really old enough to leave?  I’m just trying to make sure you’ve thought things through.”

  
    “We’re in love,” Melchior said with a shrug.  “There’s not supposed to be logic involved.  We have money to float us through and we can pick up odd jobs along the way.  We’ll make it.  And Howard, look at her--she’s the most beautiful, intelligent, loving woman in the world.  I don’t want anything else.  I’m going to take care of her.”

  
    “Mr. Howard, with all due respect, we don’t want to wait.  We were going to leave together anyway.  We’re married in all but name, already, and this ring,” Gemma said happily, wagging her left hand for Howard’s inspection, “seals the deal.  But we wanted to say goodbye and make sure someone knew of our departure, in case another kidnapping charge is ever issued against my fiancé.”

  
    Melchior’s lips curled in a smile at the way she said it.   _Fiancé_.  In a few hours, she’d be saying husband.

  
    He wasn’t sure how he could have ever doubted that marriage was the right decision.  He remembered all the joy at proposing to her.

  
    “We’ve sent a letter to our friend, Harry, as well,” she continued, grabbing Melchior’s hand.  “We just wanted to say our goodbyes.”

  
    “Well, don’t expect a hug,” Howard said.  He threw the cigar away.  “This calls for celebration, but I assume you’re in too much of a hurry for a bottle of champagne.”

  
    “Correct.  Anyway, it’s late--nearly seven--aren’t you supposed to be at home?”

  
    “I like working late at the office.  It’s what I used to do when I was younger and worked here as a clerk.  Old habits...” he trailed off.  “Well, in any case, since you’re here, I have a proposition for you.  I was going to offer it to you the last time you were here, but we all know how that turned out.  Melchior and future Mrs. Melchior--I would like your story.”

  
    “What?” they asked simultaneously.

  
    “Your story,” Howard said simply.  “You’ve written groundbreaking things, wonderful things--but if you think about it, you’ve lived a more groundbreaking story than anything you’ve ever written.  Melchior, your past, and Gemma, your secret career--it could start a revolution.  Women are already rising up in the world, Miss Keeper, and while you’re not the first woman journalist, they’re still few and far between.  You both took control of your own destiny, if you will.  It’s something I think the world needs to read about.”

  
    The young couple was quiet for a moment.

  
    Gemma whispered to Melchior softly, “Do you think that our story is one that could help people?  Something worth hearing?”

  
    “Of course it’s worth hearing.  But it’s something to consider,” he replied, “that maybe the world isn’t quite ready to hear it.”

  
    “And it certainly isn’t finished yet.”

  
    “Certainly.  Mr. Howard,” Melchior said firmly, “if you will.  We’d prefer if you didn’t publish a story...yet.”

  
    “Of course.  I’m sorry if my request offended you.”

  
    “Not at all,” Gemma said.  “Tell you what--we’ll consider it on our trip, and when we come back, perhaps we’ll have more to add to the story.  Then we can see if it’s what New York’s ready to hear.”

  
    “That sounds about right.  Can I offer you some cash before you go?” Howard laughed.  “One of my hidden talents--gift-giving.”

  
    “I think we’re all set.  Thank you, though, and goodbye.  We’ll keep in touch.”


	45. Chapter 45

Nerves.  
  
Melchior had always kept his cool, used his logic, and even employed deep breathing when worries got to him.  After all, Melchior was a first class worrier and being a cynic most of the time didn’t help with his list of things to worry about.  
  
The economy could crash, New York could be flooded in a massive tidal wave, the sister he’d never met probably hated him already, a tree could crash down on him and kill him...  
  
The world was too unpredictable for him not to worry.  And, to tell the truth, being in love did nothing for a worrier either, at least nothing good.  
  
Gemma could get lost one day, Gemma could get stolen, Gemma could forget not to talk to strangers, Gemma could get fed up with him one day and leave him abandoned at the altar.  
  
Oh.  The altar.  He was getting married now.  
  
    “Son, are you all right?” inquired the rotund priest who put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Melchior shook his head, dispelling his fearful reverie, and tried to focus.  It was the priest’s hand on his shoulder, the priest he’d scoured the city for while Gemma had packed.  Father Augustus was his name, at least he thought so--and he’d agreed, albeit a little confusedly, to perform a rushed marriage ceremony.

Ah, yes, Melchior remembered the conversation he’d had a few hours before.

_“Are you the priest at this church?” he’d asked hurriedly, trying not to run down the center aisle of the small chapel._

_“Yes, my son.  How can I help you?”_

_“I need to be married.  This evening.”_

_The priest had frowned, putting a hand on his round belly.  “An elopement?  Aren’t you a little young to be running off and getting married?  The church doesn’t sanction divorce.”_

_“I’m not going to divorce her--the girl, I mean,” Melchior had said, grasping a pew in frustration.  “I’m in love with her, and we can’t stand another minute of not being married.”_

_“Perhaps you should get your parents involved?” the priest had attempted._

_“I had sex with her.”_

_The old man had gasped at his bluntness._

_“I also didn’t--we didn’t, I mean--well, we’re not married--and she could be pregnant.”_

_“Be here in an hour.”_

  
    And here he was, approximately an hour later.  Gemma had insisted on waiting outside the chapel and making her entrance, leaving him to wait in endless torture.  The priest had been fetched, the little church was empty, and the candles gave it the secretive, romantic tone of a runaway wedding.

  
    Gemma hadn’t come in yet.    
  
Melchior wasn’t a nervous person, and when he was, he kept a handle on them and controlled them to a robotic extent.  Now, he could be classified as a nervous wreck, left with sweating palms and shaking legs.  Every inch of him was trembling with nerves.  

On top of it all, he felt horribly under-dressed: it was his wedding, after all, and he was wearing the customary white dress shirt and dark trousers.  His trench coat did nothing to help spruce him up, so he’d taken it off and tried to comb his fingers through a few unruly curls.

    The priest kept a comforting hand on his hand and stood in front of the altar.  Melchior blinked rapidly and tried to focus on how pretty the chapel was and not that his fiancée could have run away from their wedding, or worse--somehow gotten kidnapped or murdered right outside of a church.

  
    Melchior was about to rail against the indecency of committing a crime on the doorstep of a church, but he thought the better of it and turned to face the altar.  He was sure that hand-wringing was going to be his newest hobby as a husband.

  
    Then he heard the heavy oak door creak open, and his heart flew up to his throat.  Those were her steps on the stones, her fingers on the door.

  
    He wheeled around--and there she was.

  
    The most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

  
    Melchior couldn’t stop himself from gasping, because none of it seemed real: the emotional wrecking ball that tore through him, the ethereal image before him, the gravity of the whole situation.  The rest of his life closed the door to the church and waited on the threshold of the aisle, wearing the most exquisitely shy smile.

  
    “Sorry,” she whispered, walking slowly up the aisle.  Stopping suddenly, she blushed and looked down.  “I didn’t want to look mussed up for the weddi--for this.”  With a growing smile, she continued down the aisle demurely and knelt down to genuflect.  “Thank you, Father, for agreeing to this.”

  
    “It is my pleasure, my child.”

  
    “You look--” Melchior choked, trying not to die right then and there, “--you look so beautiful.  I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life.”

  
    Beaming, she faced him and took his hand in hers.  Melchior grasped her hands like lifelines, anchoring himself in her stunning smile and yes, those eyes.  “Your dress,” he said.  “Where--how--?”

  
    “What, this old thing?” she chuckled, smoothing down the white satin of the gown.  “Back of my closet.”

  
    “Impossible.”  It was perfect.  High-necked, graceful, like a swan, with pearl buttons traveling down the gorgeous length of her body that he loved so much.  Her hair floated down her back and around her shoulders like an angel, with familiar crystal starbursts in her hair from her coming-out party.  She was even carrying the bouquet he’d gotten her.

  
    Those eyes, though--shining, grey, otherworldly--he was lost in them, just as he always was, just as he hoped he’d be for the rest of his life.

  
    Growing a smile to match hers, Melchior impulsively leaned in to kiss Gemma and was met by the priest clearing his throat.

  
    “Not yet, my boy, but in a few minutes.  Since this isn’t a wedding mass, this should only take a moment.”

  
    “Perfect,” Gemma grinned.  “The sooner, the better.”

  
    “Now, could you please tell me your full names, for the purposes of the ceremony?”

  
    “Gemma Katherine Keeper,” she said confidently, squeezing Melchior’s hand.

  
    He squeezed back.  “Melchior Alban Gabor.”

  
    The priest chuckled.  “Once again, an elopement doesn’t require the normal wedding routine: no father giving away the bride, no scriptures or homilies, just you two.  So, we are gathered here today to join Melchior Gabor and Gemma Keeper in holy matrimony.  If anyone should object to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  
    Melchior tensed, waiting for her parents to burst through the door--or worse, Harry on some ridiculous white horse, prepared to sweep Gemma away...

  
    She squeezed his hand again, and the chapel stayed silent.

  
    “Right, then.  State the intentions,” the priest said, eyeing the boy and encouraging him to follow.  “Do you, Melchior Alban Gabor, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?”

  
    Melchior grinned at Gemma, who looked at him expectantly as the priest continued.

  
    “...To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse..."

  
    He didn’t know what was growing faster: his triumphant smile or the amount of tears brimming in his eyes.  He couldn’t afford not to see, though; tear-clouded vision meant her starlight eyes would disappear from him.

  
    “...for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

  
    “I do,” he said firmly.  Lifting a hand to cup Gemma’s cheek, he whispered more softly, “I take _you_.”

  
    She smiled brilliantly through the tears that started flowing freely.  “My turn, I think.”

  
    “And do you, Gemma Katherine Keeper, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

  
    “I do.”

  
    “Then, by the power vested in me, by the state of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest said pleasantly, always happy to perform a wedding.  Even if the boy had deflowered her before the wedding night, they clearly looked like they loved each other.

  
    He was a sucker for young love, anyway.  Closing his Bible, the priest sighed at the young couple, who looked close to bursting with joy and anticipation.  “You may kiss the--”

            The priest never got to finish the sentence.  They went in for the kiss even before he began to speak.  
  
            There had always been a lot of talk about a person’s life flashing before their eyes before their death.  In truth, Gemma had always been frightened and secretly fascinated by the idea that she’d see everything she’d ever done in the fleeting seconds before dying.  Part of it sounded romantic and interesting, a good closing to a life.  Thinking realistically, she was sure her life up to then had been pretty dull, and she’d see years of schoolyards and reading before kicking the bucket.

  
            Gemma didn’t expect to see something like it where she was now.  Waiting on the precipice of bride and wife for the priest to finally announce those words, Gemma felt the air in the room grow thick.  The heat around her was smothering her, from the candles around her to the burning joy in her heart.

  
            “ _I now pronounce you husband and wife_.”

  
            The priest finally said those seven words, and everything slowed down just like they were supposed to.  Gemma didn’t see events from her past, however--only her future.  Travelling with Melchior, holding his hand on top of the Eiffel Tower, watching him sleep on the train to Spain, endless nights of passion in the spice-laden air of India--returning home, bearing his beautiful children, growing old with that gorgeous face in front of her, inches away.

  
            Their lips had connected, and the visions ended.  She heard Melchior moan under her kiss, and they were holding each other and embracing with no hesitation, just happiness.  Melchior was searing her with a kiss, their first kiss as husband and wife--she was being kissed by her husband!  
            Breaking away for air, she gasped, “Did you see it?”

  
            “I can only see you!”

  
            The priest pottered away with a satisfied hum, and Gemma felt herself getting assaulted with Melchior’s kiss again.

  
            “I am--worried--” she murmured against him.  “Death--do us part--?”

  
             “Do you--think death--could stop--this?” Melchior said, kissing her hungrily.  “Could stop—me loving you?  Impossible!”

  
            “Melchi!”

  
            He stopped.  “I will love you every day for the rest of eternity...and then a little more than that... Well, more than a little.  Can I just say I will never stop loving you?”

  
            “I’d accept that,” she laughed, grabbing his hand.  “Grab your coat, we’ve got to head out.  Being married and all.  We can’t go back home, or to your apartment, and we’ve sent a telegram to Harry and met with Howard.”

  
            Melchior grabbed his coat and threw it over her shoulders, picking up their bags and opening the door for his new wife to the city.  “Keep that bouquet of yours, Mrs. Gabor.  We’re making a quick stop before we head out to Ellis Island.”


	46. Chapter 46

  “She’s _GONE_???” John Keeper, Sr. roared as he stormed around the lounge.

  
    Wilhelmina sighed.  In the few minutes since her husband had realized that Gemma was sneaking out to run away for good, he’d managed to make himself look like a complete mess.  His collar was undone and the little blond hair he still had was askew.

  
    “Darling.”  She stood up to stop him and straighten his clothes.  “Gemma is an awful liar and an emotional girl--did you not realize she was trying to say her goodbyes?”

  
    “I don’t see how you’re so calm about this, Wilhelmina!” he said in a pained voice.  “You should be panicking!  She’s run away, again!  I don’t know how to deal with this!  Do we send someone out to find her?”

  
    “Yes,” Jacky said solemnly from a couch, where Marny was stroking his hair.  Even Marny looked worried.  “A search party.”

  
    Marny grumbled.  “The last search party we sent out never turned up a thing, and she nearly left us for Europe by then.  It was only thanks to Melchior we found her at all.”

  
    This gave the Keeper patriarch an idea: “Someone fetch the German boy!  He’ll know where she went this time!”

  
    “My dear, I’m sure he went with her,” Wilhelmina said.  “No, I think looking for her is a lost cause, because our daughter does not want to be found.  Melchior will...keep her safe, and when she wishes to return, she will.  I doubt she has the gumption to stay away forever.”

  
    John Keeper sat down with his son, putting his face in his hands.  The entire Keeper clan had gathered in the spacious lounge, all in various states of boredom and sadness.  Marny’s face was pinched in an attempt not to cry, and Jacky looked simply angry and slightly distracted.

  
    Even Alice and her husband were here, Patrick holding his wife’s hand reassuringly.  “It’s time for her to go out and live her own life, don’t you think, Al?” he asked, trying to perk her up.  “She’s a smart girl, and the Gabor fellow will make sure she doesn’t fall into any harm.  Wouldn’t you say so, Harry?”

  
    “Yes, Melchior will watch over her,” Harry said distractedly, sounding quite bored.  Patrick ignored his unresponsive brother and continued to hold Alice’s hand.  Everyone in the room went back to worrying quietly.

  
    Harry stared into space, his face vacant of any thought.  The stylish girl sitting patiently next to him gently grabbed for the white slip of paper he held clenched between his fingers.  That got his attention; Harry looked at her anxiously while she read the slip of paper to herself.

  
    “A telegram?” she said softly, so the rest of the family couldn’t hear.

  
    He shrugged.  “They wanted someone to know they were leaving together, just to leave behind...some reassurance.  Did you see the address?”

  
    “To contact them in Germany?” she said, blinking.  “Why would they give us an address?  Don’t they want to be alone?”

  
    “I think it might be just to check in.  Maybe we could arrange a visit, but I don’t know how long they’d be staying there, anyway... What’s the name of the town?   _Frühlingsberg_?” he said, mangling the name.

  
    “I’m pretty sure whatever the name is, you just killed it,” she laughed.  “What do you say we get out of here?  It’s a little heavy, and I’m itching for a run.”

  
    “Hmmm.  Maybe later.”

  
    She sighed heavily, standing up in front of Harry and posing with her hands on her hips.  “Come on, Harry-o.  You need to get out of here for a little while.  They’ll be just fine, and you have the proof right there.”  She waved her left hand in front of him.  “Or did you forget--you’re my escort for the rest of your life, genius.  See this ring?  That’s your way of signing up to take me wherever I want to go.”

  
    Harry grinned up at the vivacious redhead in front of him.  “You might have to remind me, Randy.”

  
    They left the house hand in hand.

 

 

 

 

  
    It seemed wrong somehow: the headstone was too small, pitiful even.  Harry had taken care of the funeral arrangements and burial, but with so little information on the boy’s life, they didn’t even have a birth date for the tombstone.

  
    So, it was simple and small, white granite about a foot tall.  It must have cost a fair amount, especially with what Melchior had heard Harry did for the coffin, but it still didn’t seem enough.

  
    The truth of the matter was, Fiff deserved a shrine, but it wasn’t Fiff anymore.  Knowing that, the grave didn’t seem so small anymore.  
     
    **FIFF GABOR**  
 **died April 14th, 1898**  
  
    “Gabor?” Gemma questioned quietly.

  
    “He already was,” Melchior confirmed.  “I mean, he was our son, for all intents and purposes.  You don’t mind, do you?  It was the one thing I had to do with the ceremony.”

  
    “No, not at all--it seems right,” she said.  “You went to the funeral?”

  
    “No.  I mean, they all asked, and Harry did so much to make it respectable, but I couldn’t go.  It’s not him anymore.  Still, he said he’d put ‘Gabor’ on there, too.”

  
    Gemma sighed and placed her wedding bouquet on top of the grave, which had a healthy growth of grass around it after these months.  “We miss you, Fiff.  We got married today, and you should have been there.  But, I guess if you think about it, you were there.”

  
    “We love you,” Melchior added.  “You keep an eye on us, now--we’re leaving for a while and seeing the world, so we can’t come back and visit you here.”

  
    “--But we will be back, and soon!” Gemma promised.  “Fiff, my friend...my baby... _our_ friend...”

  
    Melchior saw an errant tear on the corner of her eye, and he leaned in to kiss it away.  “Come on, the ship is leaving in three hours.  We’d better get a move on.”  


 

 

  
    Every Keeper in the house was off in their own little world, each seeing the situation in a different way, and no one even noticed when Harry left with his own fiancée.

  
    No one, that is, except Alice.

  
    Alice paid more attention to things around her than people could guess.  Being the obedient eldest daughter, she’d always been quiet and given way at the slightest provocation.  It was easy enough for her: with her beauty and manners, no one would bother her if she stayed quiet, and Alice hated confrontation.  That was something she and Gemma had had in common.

  
    Ever since her marriage, she hadn’t gotten to spend much time with her favorite sister, and she felt guilty when Gemma ran away the first time.  She was obviously so lonely that she’d run off, and that was partially Alice’s fault.  Still, it had all turned out all right--when she’d returned and Alice had promised to spend more time with Gemma, she hadn’t needed to.  Melchior was over all the time, taking up her attention.

  
    Oh, yes, Alice had observed a great deal about the boy, and about them as a couple.  At the very least, she understood that the connection between Gemma and Melchior wasn’t one that would be broken over anything small, so she was probably safe to leave for whatever crazy adventure they clearly had in mind.

  
    She also knew, based on her observations, that Gemma would be back, even if it wasn’t for a while.  In a way, Alice was almost jealous; Gemma was going to live her dream, running all over the world and exploring and learning and _writing_ every bit of it down.  Furthermore, she’d be with the love of her life.

  
    Fleeting fancies she’d had as a girl of singing in France and being a star flitted through the frame of her memory, but she closed her mind against them and smiled at Patrick.  Patrick, her own love, who might have taken her away from her dreams (though he surely hadn’t meant to) but became her new one.

  
    He squeezed her hand again, looking ridiculously concerned, and Alice knew she was lucky.  She could be stuck in a loveless marriage from square one, but here she was in her sixth year of marriage and her husband was still clearly in love with her.

  
    And she with him.

  
    Yes, Gemma would be back, and Alice would wait for the sister she’d miss.  Giving Patrick’s hand a final squeeze, she rose and walked over to the window facing the tree-lined avenue.  Evening descended on the city and the lamplights shone as earthbound stars.   _Bye, Gem_ , she thought in farewell.   _I’ll miss you.  Take care of that boy, and be back soon._


	47. Chapter 47

For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, from this day forward, til death do them part.  
  
    The crux of many marriage’s issues deals with the simply vows that started the marriage in the first place.  Better or worse.  Richer or poorer.  Sickness and health.  A great deal had fallen apart, and would continue to fall apart, because of these clauses in the contract.

  
    It’s not that the couple involved wasn’t strong enough to deal with the times when things were worse.  Some things are just too much for any bond to withstand.

  
    Still, Melchior Gabor had a good feeling about it.  After all, here they were, living off a wad of cash and pawned jewels.  They’d run away from home and eloped.  They’d gotten third class tickets on a crowded steamer out to London, and they didn’t have a plan or a prayer.

  
    It was almost amusing, how unprepared and unprotected they were.  If anything, this had to count as for worse and for poorer, and if he didn’t get Gemma out of the cold, it would count as in sickness, too.

  
    “Melchi?” she breathed into his neck, trying to take in warmth from his embrace.  They were sitting on a bench on deck, despite it being close to midnight.  It had been too crowded and loud belowdecks, and the newlyweds wanted to spend a quiet moment together before descending into the fray of third class.

  
    The murky, misty Atlantic air was hard to inhale from sheer cold, but Melchior did his best get his wife to breathe easily.  Wrapping his arms more tightly around her, he kissed her ear.  “I love you, Gemma Gabor.  More than absolutely anything.”

  
    “I love you, too, Melchior,” she yawned.  “Are you scared?”

  
    “About what?”

  
    “The future.”

  
    He gazed down into her wide, slightly frightened grey eyes.  “A little.”

  
    She snuggled closer.  “Me too.  It’s a big world out there.”

  
    “I think you’ll find it’s not so big,” he said soothingly.  “We all live under the same stars.  As long as I’m here, you’ll be safe.”

  
    “Who keeps you safe?”

  
    “You,” he shrugged.  “Fiff.  Wendla, Moritz.  God.  They’ll all keep us safe, and even if they don’t, I still get to be with you.”

  
    She hugged him tighter.  “You can’t leave me, then.  If we’re to protect each other, Melchior, we must always stay together--I couldn’t live if you left me, or if something happened to you.”

  
    “Gemma,” he said, turning her to face him, “you’re not supposed to worry that I’m going to leave you, because you know I never, ever will.  What I feel for you...it’s not going to die out.  My love for you will never die, Gem, and as long as you promise that your heart will always be there for me, there’s nothing in this world I won’t go up against to keep us together.  All the pain, all the joy it has to throw at us--I’ll take it all.”

  
    “And I take _you_ ,” she giggled, repeating what he’d said at the altar.  “Kiss me.”

  
    “Always,” he replied, and he leaned in and pressed his lips, tentatively, sweetly, to hers.  “There,” he grinned, pulling back.  “Three.”

  
    “Three?”

  
    “Kiss number three as your husband,” he laughed, eyes twinkling.  “I figured I should count.”

  
    Gemma leaned in and pulled him close to kiss him again.  “All right,” she said warmly.  “I’m warning you, though--now it’s my mission to make you lose count.”


	48. Chapter 48

_Litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum..._

  
_In school, it never made sense to me.  It was a mindless chant, an indoctrination into the world of growing men, and usually my downfall.  Pronunciation was, after all, never a strong suit of mine._

  
_Growing up, I didn’t think I had a strong suit at all.  But I know what the passage means now.  From Virgil’s Aeneid and roughly translated, it means: This man was beaten and broken by both the violence of land and sea._

  
_Looking back, I see that this passage that I could never say right no matter how many times I read it, no matter how much my eyes glazed over with memorization, was me._   
_I was the beaten man, battered and broken._

  
_In class, they limited us to Latin and Greek.  Still, my friends and I cam across a forbidden copy of Dante’s Inferno, kept by the preacher in his own private library.  For those who don’t know, the Inferno is the story of Dante’s journey into the depths of hell, where his guide (coincidentally Virgil) shows him the punishment sinner find in the afterlife._   
  
_According to Dante, a man who commits suicide will have his soul planted into a circle of hell, where it will grow into a tree.  The tree will be beset by beasts that cause the soul pain, and when the time comes for all souls to rejoin their earthly bodies, the suicides will remain trees._

_Giving their bodies up willingly, they have no chance to get them back after death._

_That seems to be the general consensus: suicides are sent to hell, sent into nonexistence.  They are punished for throwing away God’s greatest gift._

 

_The preacher mentioned this in passing, at my funeral._

 

  
_It’s a sort of rule here, that you don’t have to remember if you don’t want to.  Of course, ‘here’ is a relative term, but when you arrive, you understand that if you don’t want to, you don’t have to keep the ability to look back on your life.  It’s understood that some hurts go so deep, even in death, that the dead can’t bear to remember._

  
_But I remember everything.  I choose to remember, without shame._

  
_I remember thinking about this part of the Inferno when I grabbed the pistol, terrified, from my father’s desk.  I was so afraid, so consumed with hopelessness and darkness, that I couldn’t see a single pinpoint of light.  Even when Ilse was there, and Ilse was the moon, I couldn’t see any light.  Darkness and coldness, and fear of judgment._

  
_I can remember the cold, biting taste of metal in my mouth, the unfamiliar flavor that sent my worries into a frenzy.  I can remember closing my eyes, feeling the resistance of the trigger in my trembling hands, and the great bang that followed._

  
_And then, I was here.  I am Moritz Stiefel, and I am not a tree.  My soul is whole, and my story short but endless._   
  
_Like I said, ‘here’ is a relative term.  Time is relative, and so is form.  The soul doesn’t need things like time to mark the passage of its life, nor does it need a shape.  I’m a shooting star, I’m the creaking pages of Great Expectations.  I’m the scent of cedar on the breeze, the salty spray of the shore, and part of the fabric of the universe.  I am part of fabulous, amazing, glorious things that I can’t even tell you, because you wouldn’t understand.  It’s perfect here, on these new dimensions and levels._

  
_Still, I am me.  I know my names, and I know me.  So, I suppose if you ever got the chance to see me where I spend most of my time, I would appear to you as I was: skyward hair, gawky frame, schoolboy uniform.  But some things would be different--my smile, the ease in my posture, my confidence and peace.  I am happy here.  I am everything._

  
_If you could see me where I am, it might appear to you like I am standing in the middle of a windy field of star-studded grain.  You might see a creek or a willow tree, but it would be up to you._

  
_You would see her, for she was here as soon as I arrived.  Even though she died later than me, she was waiting for me in the field with a warm, slow smile of friendship and understanding._

  
_I don’t know why Wendla was waiting for me when I should have been waiting for her, but there are so many things even here that we don’t understand.  She was just here, and she didn’t know why, either.  But everywhere we’ve gone since then, we’ve gone together, hand in hand._

  
_“I wonder why,” I once asked her, “he wasn’t here, waiting with you for me.”_

  
_She’d nodded, thoughtfully stroking the flowers and grass.  “I suppose it just wasn’t the way it was meant to work.  But we’ll see him soon, I am sure of it.  We’ll be here, with many others, to wait for Melchior when he comes here.”_

  
_We forgave him a long time ago, even before our deaths._   
  
_They did get one thing right on Earth: the dead never truly leave their living loved ones.  We are at home in their hearts, guided through their lives by their own hands, keeping them safe in our fullness of love and belief in them.  We can’t interfere with them, we can’t speak with them, but we are there and listening.  A soul can be with them and also on spiritual adventures, doing higher and greater things, because we are not confined by one shape._

  
_It was an unspoken agreement that I would be the one to watch Melchior.  Wendla and I never talked about it, and she certainly forgave him and never blamed him for her death.  All she felt was love and tenderness for the boy.  Still, even as she’d chosen to remember her life in its entirety, that life for her was over.  She would not be the one to watch over him, though she’d always be a part of him.  In fact, the only time Wendla ever travelled to Earth to be with Melchior was the night in the graveyard, where she and I were summoned to be there to stop him from making my mistake._

  
_Yes, we were summoned.  The higher power does exist here, in whatever form you believe.  We were sent to stop him and succeeded, but Wendla never went back after that.  She gets the reports I bring every so often when I keep tabs on him, and these satisfy her._

  
_I love being able to watch my best friend._

  
_I followed him closely as he suffered those first few years, trying to instill him with strength.  “We forgive you,” I’d tell him when he tossed and turned with nightmares, but of course he could not hear._

  
_The five years he suffered because of us made me feel the closest I’d ever felt to unhappiness here.  They made me feel a little discontent, because I knew what was coming for him and wished for him to escape the darkness he’d buried himself in._

  
_The answer to my prayers came in the little boy.  My complete and utter happiness unfolded when Fiff began to bring him back to life, and Wendla’s smiles grew even bigger._

  
_Fiff arrived technically six years after our deaths, though for us it seemed like one day I was watching him hold Melchior’s hand in the city and the next he was here, happier and healthier than he’d ever been.  He’d been making a daisy chain for us while we approached him and rewarded us with ear-to-ear grins and hugs._

  
_Fiff is happy here, and he is with Melchior, too--though he is still a young soul, and spends more time exploring with Wendla, who treats him like a younger brother or the son she never had.  He knows Melchior and Gemma will be here soon enough._   
  
_This particular time, I walk back to my field, where his head is lolling in her lap, looking up at the cosmos around us._

  
_“Morry, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal!” he yells with delight, springing from her lap and running toward me.  “Did they get back yet?”_

  
_“Are you going to let me sit down, Fiffian?  I just got back, and I’m pretty tired...” I joke, faking  a yawn._

  
_He clambers onto my back, calling my transparent bluff.  How can one be tired here?_

  
_“You’re a real laugh, you are.  Come on, Morry!  The last time I checked, Melchi’d gotten into a spot of trouble in Shanghai!”_

  
_Wendla laughs out loud.  “What did he do in Shanghai, Fiff?”_

  
_“Get this--somehow, Melchi got caught in the middle of some meeting for jade smuggling, just because he chose the wrong door looking for--wait for it--a bathroom.”_

  
_We collapse into giggles.  “I thought the last time you checked, they were in California--where they--”_

  
_Fiff covers my mouth.  “We shall never speak of it!!!!”_

  
_“Speak of what?” Wendla asked with a wicked grin._

  
_I roll my eyes at Fiff’s sounds of anger and tell her.  “Fiff happened to check in when Melchior and Gemma were in the middle of something, er...rather private.”_

  
_“Why is it I always catch those two in bed together?” Fiff whines, burying his head in his hands._   
_Wendla soothes him and pats his head.  “They were only trying for a baby, Fiff.  It’s been three years, after all, and he wants a big family.  Anyway,” she says, turning to me, “how were they?”_

  
_“Marvelous.  They’ve finally finished their trip around the world, and they sold the rights to their story to Mr. Howard.”_

  
_“We’ll be famous!” Fiff says with stars in his eyes.  “Everyone will know of the daring, brave, handsome, charming, real perfect orphan boy who sacrificed himself for their love--”_

  
_“Oh, hush,” Wendla tuts.  “I think it’s lovely that they wish to include us in their story.  Go on, Moritz.”_

  
_“Well,” I say, “Mr. Keeper had died before they got back, which really upset Gemma, but she did get to see her mother and Mary again.  And they spent time with Harry and Miranda before heading off to Pennsylvania.  They’re starting a school house and writing books, too.”_

  
_“Gemma will be a wonderful teacher,” Wendla breathes.  “Has she gotten pregnant yet?”_

  
_“Yes.  She gave birth to a boy a few months ago--Franz.”_

  
_“Franz?” Fiff says, wrinkling his nose.  “I should think they would name their kid after me.  After all, Fiff is a real swell name!”_

  
_Wendla squints and thinks of a compromise.  “Fiff is an acceptable nickname for Franz, I think.  And they’ll have more, to be sure.”_

  
_“Melchior’s already planning to build a huge house, from the ground up.  He’s planning for a huge family, at least ten children.”_

  
_“I thought Jimmy said she only wanted one or two,” Fiff says._

  
_I shrug.  “She’ll give in.  They want as many children as they can get, I think.”_

  
_Wendla smiles and leans back into the grass.  “I am happy that they’re happy.”_

  
_And we are.  We have watched Gemma, as well, and we love her as well as we love Melchior.  Wendla was especially pleased when Melchior realized that he loved Gem, and there is no spite on her part.  That part of Wendla’s life is over, and Gemma will be for Melchior, always.  That is something we understand up here._   


 

  
_Time is relative, here.  We know that it will take eighty-odd Earth years for our beloved Melchior to join us where there are no limits, where there is paradise and peace.  But he has also found paradise and peace within himself and the world he has created on earth.  Waiting for him seems like eternity passing as slowly as it can, and it also feels like there are mere seconds before he arrives.  We feel a clock in our souls ticking for the moment where we can be more whole then we are, when he can join us and bring Gemma with him.  We eagerly await when we can speak to her for the first time.  She will know how much we’ve loved her without knowing her._

  
_Wendla gets up and brushes the dry grass off her dress.  “Off we go,” she says brightly.  “We have things to do.”_

  
_Fiff jumps up and grabs her outstretched hand.  “Ready when you are, Wendy ol’ girl.”_

  
_They turn to me, expectant.  Fiff’s ruffled blond hair blows in the wind, and his wide blue eyes grin an invitation.  Wendla’s warm eyes challenge me to join them, knowing that I will._

  
_I smile, feeling exultant in the beauty of this air and ebb and flow, and I look at my partner in this other world.  Recalling my hand in her hair, her hand on my back, our hands entwined, I see the beauty of Wendla’s soul and Fiff’s soul and am content._

  
_I grab her hand and fold it perfectly in mine, and her smile makes everything glow bright._   
  
_It is so beautiful here.  I wish you could see.  I know you will._   
  
_I grab her hand, and we three take off for the glorious otherworldly adventures that await us.  We soar._


End file.
